We thought John O’Shea’s goal would have given us a bigger boost…
Over the last year, we have grown to try and ignore the latest FIFA rankings, as it usually brought bad news for Ireland. In June and July we slipped to 70, our lowest ever listing, but the last few months saw a slow, but steady increase, and we reached the dizzy heights of 62 last month.
The 7-0 win over Gibraltar wasn’t going to count as they were unranked but we thought a draw against the best team in the world (Germany are ranked No 1) would have us shooting up the charts like a Hozier album.
We were wrong.
John O’Shea’s goal may have lifted the mood of the nation and really boosted our hopes of making it to France 2016 but when it came to ranking points, it didn’t really move the needle.
In fact, it moved us up just one place to 61, meaning we are tucked in between DR Congo and Congo.
Ireland garnered 495 points for the result in Gelsenkirchen but as we lost 460 points when the 1-1 draw with Slovakia in 2010 dropped out of the counting process, we didn’t get much of a boost.
A team who got a huge lift were Northern Ireland. Beating the Faroes 2-0, and Greece away by the same score, saw Michael O’Neill’s side vault from 71 to 43.
England fall back two spits to 20, while Ireland’s next opponent’s Scotland fall eight places to 37.
