{"id":148571,"date":"2025-11-19T16:33:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T16:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/148571\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T16:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T16:33:06","slug":"ireland-rise-to-59th-in-world-but-remain-in-pot-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/148571\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland rise to 59th in world but remain in Pot 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Republic of Ireland have climbed three places in the latest FIFA world rankings, rising to 59th after the World Cup qualifying victories over Portugal and Hungary.<\/p>\n<p>Despite scoring the most points of any nation (+34.86), Heimir Hallgrimsson&#8217;s men will still be in Pot 3 of tomorrow&#8217;s draw for the play-off semi-finals (Live on RT\u00c9 News\/Player), as the lowest-ranked Pot 2 side Slovakia remain 14 places ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Ireland will be away to either the Slovaks, Poland (31), Wales (32) or Czechia (44) on 26 March next year.<\/p>\n<p>European champions Spain remain top of the pile, with World Cup holders Argentina, France and England also unchanged.<\/p>\n<p>Brazil are new entrants into the top five, Group F winners Portugal dropping to sixth after their surprise defeat in Dublin.<\/p>\n<p>Hungary, who were seconds away from progressing at Ireland&#8217;s expense, fall four places to 41st after their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/soccer\/2025\/1116\/1544242-remarkable-parrott-hat-trick-earns-world-cup-play-off\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">dramatic 3-2 defeat<\/a> in Budapest.<\/p>\n<p>Malta were the biggest climbers, rising five places to 161st after their victory over now 75th-ranked Finland in Helsinki.<\/p>\n<p>Northern Ireland, who are in pot 4 of the World Cup play-offs, remain 69th, while Scotland are up two places to 36th after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/soccer\/2025\/1118\/1544684-whirlwind-scottish-finish-secures-world-cup-spot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">dramatic victory over Denmark<\/a> that secured their spot in North America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic of Ireland have climbed three places in the latest FIFA world rankings, rising to 59th after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-148571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}