Last month’s friendly defeat at the hands of Australia has seen the Republic of Ireland drop one place in the latest Fifa world rankings, published this morning.
Giovanni Trapattoni’s side fall to 38th with Poland moving ahead of them in the standings. Saturday’s World Cup qualifying opponents Cyprus also moved in the wrong direction, sliding three places to 76th.
Fellow Group Eight rivals Italy move up one place to fourth while Bulgaria climbed inside the top 20 at 19th.
Australia, the best-placed team from the Asian confederation, climbed two places to 14th on the back of that 3-0 win at Thomond Park.
Brazil stayed top of the pile as the top three remained unchanged in August while Mexico continued their climb up the table as they enjoy a revival under coach Javier Aguirre.
Brazil, who beat Estonia 1-0 in a friendly last month to extend their unbeaten run to 17 matches and notch their ninth successive win, are followed by Spain in second place and Netherlands in third.
Mexico moved up six places to 24th after beating the USA 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier, their second win over their neighbours in as many months. The Americans are 11th and remain the Concacaf region's highest-ranked team.
Ivory Coast, Africa's top team, dropped two places to 20th.
Fifa Rankings
1. (1) Brazil
2. (2) Spain
3. (3) Netherlands
4 = (5) Italy
4 = (4) Germany
6. (6) Russia
7. (7) England
8. (8) Argentina
9. (10) Croatia
10. (9) France
11. (12) USA
12. (11) Greece
13. (14) Serbia
14. (16) Australia
15. (13) Switzerland
16. (15) Denmark
17. (17) Portugal
18. (22) Czech Republic
19. (23) Bulgaria
20. (18) Ivory Coast
Other
38. (37) Rep of Ireland
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)