The Republic of Ireland have fallen behind Northern Ireland in the Fifa world rankings for the first time ever in the wake of recent poor performances from Steve Staunton's side.
While the merit of such ranking systems could often be described as spurious, the fact that the Republic below Lawrie Sanchez's side marks the transformation in fortunes for both sides.
As Sanchez has presided over the North's successful start to the Euro 2008 campaign, with a 3-2 win over Spain the highlight, the Republic's bid to reach the finals is all but dead in the water following defeats to Germany and Cyprus with a credible draw with the Czech Republic failing to halt the slide to 49th in the list.
Northern Ireland, on the other hand, broke into the top 50 for the first time and at 45th, are now ranking four places above Staunton's side.
It is an amazing transformation for the North from when Sanchez took over from Sammy McIlroy less than three years ago. Northern Irish football was at a serious low-point when Sanchez arrived and although there has been the odd setback, progress has been steady.
Sanchez said: "It's fantastic news. When I took over the best part of three years ago we had not scored for 13 games in something like two years, and we had not won in 14 games.
"I said at the time the first thing was to score a goal, the next was to win a game and the third was to improve our world ranking from 124th. We scored in our first game, won our second, are now 45th in the rankings.
"I should have said the fourth thing would be to go above the Republic of Ireland, and now we have. That is great kudos for us as there is great rivalry between us and we have never been above them since the rankings started."
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