The "Real" World Cup

They call this tournament, the "World" Cup, and there's no doubt about its international pedigree, even the final 32 teams cover every corner of the globe, from New Zealand to Honduras, Paraguay to Japan, and South Africa to Denmark.

But, if you look closely, the international flavor starts to lose its salt. Out of the possible 72 semi-finalists in all 18 of the previous World Cup, only 4 teams were not European, Brazil, Argentina, or Uruguay. Read that again, FOUR, and I'm being generous because I'm counting the Soviet Union. Yawn, YAWN, Bloody Yawn!

2002: Korea
1966: Soviet Union
1962: Chile
1930: USA

There may be reasons why you might expect this empirically, such as the fact that UEFA sends the most teams to the tournament every time, and gets to do so because most of their teams are just great (the losers of the playoff qualifiers have the potential to make the semis alone). But the fact remains, its not as much of a "World" Cup as one might like. Many fans only plan for the group stages, because the expect their team to be going home early.

So, I started to think about a second World Cup, a "Real" World cup, one where there may be more equality in the results between teams from across the globe, one where you'd get more unpredictable games in the group stages, and one where you'd get more diverse semi-finals at least. If such a World Cup were to happen, and it had 32 teams, it would be inviting the losers, the non-qualifiers, the second best from all the regions.

First, I checked out the rankings, here is the ranking of the top 32 teams to not make it to the World Cup this year:

Ranking	Country	Region
9	Croatia	UEFA
11	Russia	UEFA
13	Egypt	CAF
22	Norway	UEFA
24	Israel	UEFA
25	Ukraine	UEFA
28	Romania	UEFA
29	Czech Republic	UEFA
33	Turkey	UEFA
34	Colombia	CONMEBOL
36	Ecuador	CONMEBOL
37	Sweden	UEFA
39	Bulgaria	UEFA
41	Gabon	CAF
42	Costa Rica	CONCACAF
43	EIRE	UEFA
44	Scotland	UEFA
46	Latvia	UEFA
48	Lithuania	UEFA
49	Venezuela	CONMEBOL
49	Finland	UEFA
51	Bosnia	UEFA
52	Burkina Faso	CAF
53	Peru	CONMEBOL
54	Mali	CAF
55	Tunisia	CAF
56	Hungary	UEFA
57	N. Ireland	UEFA
58	Poland	UEFA
59	Benin	CAF
60	Iran	AFC
60	FYR Macedonia	UEFA

Here's how many teams that would be from each region:

Region	Number
UEFA	20
CAF	6
CONMEBOL	4
CONCACAF	1
AFC	1
OFC	0

OK, that's not going to work, so I'll go back to the format that the organizers use, where they restrict the number of entrants from UEFA. But with a few new rules of my own. In the following list, for each region, I'll detail the number of entrants, and why.

UEFA: 9
The original number of 13 is too much for my liking, and I decided to free up four spaces for the other regions. In addition to taking the 9 second-best UEFA teams, I will not include the ones that lost in the playoffs, simply because they're too good anyway, so Russia, Ukraine, and Republic of Ireland are out (Henry handball notwithstanding). Bosnia stays in because I like them for even making the playoffs, so there. My rules.

The 9 UEFA teams would be (with rankings):

Ranking	Country
9	Croatia
24	Israel
29	Bosnia-Herzegovina
29	Czech Republic
37	Sweden
46	Latvia
49	Finland
56	Hungary
57	Northern Ireland

Africa: 6
I award Africa one of the spots taken from UEFA:

Ranking	Country
13	Egypt
41	Gabon
52	Burkina Faso
54	Mali
55	Tunisia
59	Benin

Asia: 6
I award Asia one of the spots taken from UEFA, and I also give them an extra half a spot, because they lost their inter-continental playoff qualifier against New Zealand.

Ranking	Country
60	Iran
66	Saudi Arabia
69	Bahrain
94	Uzbekistan
95	Qatar
100	United Arab Emirates

CONCACAF: 5
I award CONCACAF one of the spots taken from UEFA, and I also give them an extra half a spot, because they lost their inter-continental playoff qualifier against Uruguay.

Ranking	Country
42	Costa Rica
71	El Salvador
79	Jamaica
91	Trinidad and Tobago
115	Guatemala

CONMEBOL: 5
I award CONMEBOL one of the spots taken from UEFA, and I also take away the half a spot, because of Uruguay. Take note, this is literally the rest of the teams in the entire region.

Ranking	Country
36	Ecuador
34	Columbia
49	Venezuela
53	Peru
67	Bolivia

Oceania: 1*
I would deduct half a spot because of New Zealand, but that means that the Pacific Islands would have no contenders. As it happens, there is one spot left, but how could I justify offering it to the lowliest of teams...I know, I'd make them the host nation:

Ranking	Country
146	New Caledonia

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you New Caledonia 2010, the "Real" World Cup!

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At first glance, this seems like a fantastic mixture of teams, but sadly, ranking-wise, UEFA would dominate again. It looks like at least the African teams, particularly Egypt would make the Semis, and they'd be the first African team do do so.