![\"Northern](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/07cd7fee-f1c4-4e69-9c2d-7c92bbbcc9da.jpg\")
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Northern Ireland have fallen one place in the FIFA world rankings<\/p>\n
Despite victory in Luxembourg and a battling defeat to Germany, Northern Ireland have fallen one place in the latest FIFA world rankings after they were updated on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Michael O\u2019Neill\u2019s side came away from the recent international window buoyed after a comfortable display against the minnows and then pushing the Germans hard in Cologne, which gives them three points from their opening two World Cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the world rankings do not reflect that as Northern Ireland have slipped down to 72nd in the latest standings, with West African nation Cabo Verde leapfrogging them after wins over Cameroon and Mauritius.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, it was always going to be a tough window for O\u2019Neill\u2019s men to make headway in the rankings given the lowly status of Luxembourg, who are ranked 96th, and the difficulty of taking on a powerhouse nation like Germany, so this will not be too discouraging.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Instead, they will likely be targeting next month\u2019s home double-header at Windsor Park against Slovakia and Germany for some points both in their World Cup group and the world rankings, with two wins likely to rocket them up both leaderboards.<\/p>\n
Slovakia, after their shock win over the Germans, are most improved of every nation over the last window having leapt up 10 places from 52nd to 42nd, while the Germans have fallen to their lowest ranking since September 2024 by dropping out of the world\u2019s top-10 to 12th.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s ugly reading for Heimir Hallgrimsson and the Republic of Ireland, too, although they will feel they have gotten off lightly by only falling one spot to 61st after a home draw with Hungary and then a stunning away defeat to 103rd-ranked Armenia.<\/p>\n
Spain are the new World No.1 after comprehensive wins over T\u00fcrkiye and Bulgaria, replacing Argentina at the top after Lionel Messi and co. were beaten by Ecuador, with France even jumping above the South Americans as well into second.<\/p>\n
Thomas Tuchel\u2019s England remain fourth after wins over Andorra and Serbia, Wales have climbed one place to 30th despite falling to a friendly defeat to Canada after beating Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualifier, while Scotland were the best improvers of the home nations as they moved up four spots to 43rd following victory over Belarus and a draw at Denmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland have fallen one place in the FIFA world rankings Despite victory in Luxembourg and a battling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[8928,31133,8543,1144,8538,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-433929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-conor-bradley","9":"tag-michael-oneill","10":"tag-national-stadium-at-windsor-park","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115226074923349914","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}