FIFA WORLD RANKINGS: The Republic of Ireland have risen one place to 14 in the latest FIFA World Rankings, their highest position since Mick McCarthy succeeded Jack Charlton as manager in February 1996.

Brazil, unsurprisingly, have reclaimed first place in the list from France after their fifth World Cup triumph on Sunday.

FIFA introduced its ranking system for senior national teams in August 1993 and it was in their first list that the Republic, then three matches away from a successful conclusion to the qualifying campaign for the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States, achieved their highest ever ranking of six.

The team had lost its top-10 position by the time it played in the 1994 finals but reaching the second round, where they lost to the Netherlands, helped lift them back up to eight in the November rankings.

The failure to qualify for Euro '96 and the 1998 World Cup finals, however, saw the Republic's ranking steadily fall, to a low of 57 in November 1998.

Since then McCarthy's team has gradually risen in FIFA's list, breaking into the top 40 in May 1999 (during its Euro 2000 qualifying campaign, when they were only denied a place in the finals by an "away goals" defeat by Turkey in the play-offs), the top 30 in May last year and, finally, the top 20 for the first time in six years when they beat Iran 2-1 on aggregate in November's play-offs to qualify for the World Cup finals in Japan and South Korea.

The Republic have lost only one of their last 20 competitive internationals (their World Cup play-off against Iran in Tehran last November), winning one and drawing three of their four matches in Japan and South Korea last month.

Argentina and France, both of whom failed to qualify for the second phase of the 2002 World Cup, are joint second in the rankings, with Spain rising four places to fourth. Germany are up from 11th to fifth after reaching the final while England are up four to eighth and Turkey, semi-finalists last week, are up 10 to 12th.

Montserrat remain the world's "worst" team, following their 4-0 defeat by Bhutan last weekend, retaining 203rd and last place in the rankings, beating off the challenge of the Turks and Caicos Islands, American Samoa and Guam.

Bhutan are in "nose-bleed territory", rising to 199th following their slaying of Montserrat at their Changlimithang stadium in what was dubbed "The Other Final" between the then bottom two teams in the world list.

FIFA RANKINGS (Top five in each region) - Europe: 1 France, 2 Spain, 3 Germany, 4 Portugal, 5 England (9 Rep of Ireland). Asia: 1 South Korea, 2 Japan, 3 Iran, 4 Saudi Arabia, 5 China. Africa: 1 Cameroon, 2 Nigeria, 3 Senegal, 4 South Africa, 5 Tunisia. Concacaf: 1 Mexico, 2 United States, 3 Costa Rica, 4 Honduras, 5 Trinidad and Tobago. South America: 1 Brazil, 2 Argentina, 3 Colombia, 4 Paraguay, 5 Uruguay. Oceania: 1 Australia, 2 New Zealand, 3 Fiji, 4 Tahiti, 5 Solomon Islands.

South Korea, with 61 per cent of the vote, have been named "Most Entertaining Team" of the World Cup on FIFA's website, ahead of Turkey, Brazil, Senegal and the Republic of Ireland, who took two per cent of the vote, ahead of the sixth nominated team, Germany.

Turkey's Senol Gunes was voted best European coach of the World Cup finals by the 4,000 "voters" on UEFA's website. Gunes pipped South Korean coach Guus Hiddink by 11 votes, well clear of Germany's Rudi Völler (310 votes) and Spain's Jose Camacho (229 votes). Mick McCarthy failed to pick up a single vote in the poll.