Sanchez's stock rises with world ranking

According to Lawrie Sanchez, Northern Ireland have been transformed from a laughing stock into a credible force in world football after breaking into the top 50 of Fifa's rankings, which were announced yesterday.

Northern Ireland are now ranked 45th in the world - higher than their neighbours and rivals, the Republic of Ireland, for the first time. It has been an amazing transformation since Sanchez took over from Sammy McIlroy less than three years ago.

"It's fantastic news," Sanchez said. "I'm pleased for all the players who probably used to have the mickey taken out of them when they went back to their clubs. Now they have knocked over teams like England and Spain and have become a credible force on the international scene and capable of beating sides in the top 10 of world football."

Although there has been the odd setback, Northern Irish progress has steadily improved, though it could barely have worsened.

"When I took over three years ago we had not scored for 13 games in two years, and we had not won in 14 games," Sanchez said. "I said at the time the first thing was to score, the next was to win and the third was to improve our ranking from 124th. We scored in our first game, won our second, are now 45th.

"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."

Sanchez's success has been in blending established names and new blood. "It's been a mixture of the experienced players who stayed on - some who couldn't cope with what we wanted fell by the wayside - and we re-energised with fresh blood from below," he added. "You can't buy players - the only way to bring them in is to regenerate from the bottom.

"Some players in particular have responded magnificently, such as Steve Davis - you sometimes forget how young he is - and David Healy, who has played in 24 out of the 28 games while I have been in charge and scored 16 goals."

Sanchez was furious with the reaction to the 3-0 defeat by Iceland in August, so much so that he allegedly handed in his resignation after the side's famous 3-2 win over Spain in the following match. He explained his displeasure, saying: "My argument was that there was a lack of respect for what the team had achieved and to be vilified for one poor game was not right and denigrated all the hard work. Three games later, and the team have proven their worth and now we are getting the respect."

Northern Ireland went on to beat Latvia and draw with Denmark in the most recent Euro 2008 qualifiers, but still have to face the group leaders, Sweden. "We not getting carried away," Sanchez said. "Whatever we do, we'll probably do it the hard way.

"The point of the rankings is that when they pick the qualifying groups for the next World Cup, instead of being in group six out of seven, we will be in group four or five and there will be even more teams in the group we are capable of beating."

Fifa's world rankings (previous month in brackets): 1 Brazil (1), 1,560pts; 2 Italy (5), 1,540; 3 France (2), 1,483; 4 Argentina (3) 1,446; 5 England (4), 1,370; 6 Germany (8), 1,339; 7 Netherlands (6), 1,313; 8 Czech Republic (7), 1,253; 9 Portugal (9), 1,224; 10 Spain (10) 1,198; 11 Nigeria (11) 1,139; 12 Cameroon (12) 1,110; 13 Ukraine (13) 1,054; 14 Greece (22) 979; 15 Switzerland (14) 978; 16 Sweden (18) 975; 17 Uruguay (15) 903; 18 Ivory Coast (19) 893; 20= Mexico (17) and Croatia (24) 882. Others: 25 Scotland (34); 49 Republic of Ireland (43); 77 Wales (62).