Andorra rank underachievers

Having been a member of FIFA for just short of five years now, Andorra has only ever won one match in international football - a friendly against Belarus. The tiny nation's competitive record of 16 defeats in 16 games does little to suggest that the team is capable of causing the Irish any problems this evening.

Still, the French did get a bit of a scare when they went to Barcelona as world champions nearly two years ago and had only a Frank Leboeuf penalty five minutes from time to thank for their three points against a team many of whom play for FC Andorra in the Spanish third division.

Drunk on their proximity to what would have been a wonderful result, the home side's popular goalkeeper, Kolko Alvarez, announced immediately afterwards that he felt the result showed "how little difference there is between us and some of the best teams in Europe."

In fact, there is a world of difference with Andorra's current ranking of 146 on the FIFA list suggesting that they are Europe's third weakest team - only Liechtenstein and San Marino are reckoned to be worse.

Then again, there's, er, no prizes for recalling which country handed Liechtenstein their greatest ever haul of ranking points a few years back.