What does qualifying for a World Cup mean today?

The magical day on which Cape Verde achieved their first FIFA World Cup qualification will be remembered for a really long time. Cape Verde had been under Portuguese rule up until 1975. Its football team played the first ever match in 1978. The first time it entered FIFA World Cup qualifiers was for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. That campaign was rather anticlimactic because, having played just two games, resulting in a draw and a defeat against Algeria, they were knocked out of contention. Their tournament experience has been limited to four African Nations’ Cups, all within the last twelve years. They have punched above their weight and reached the quarterfinals twice. Despite those heroics, the World Cup so soon had initially felt like a challenge too steep. 

Playing in the FIFA World Cup is one of the most effective ways to put a country on the map. There will be people who have and will hear the name and whereabouts of Cape Verde only because they have qualified for the World Cup. Cape Verde’s story is a compelling one. Made up of ten volcanic islands in the Atlantic, Cape Verde became the country with the smallest land area to ever qualify for a World Cup. Among countries that have played the World Cup, only Iceland had a smaller population. 

Football has always been in love with a good old-fashioned underdog. The possibilities of a massive mismatch, despite its almost certain foregone conclusion, have always felt quite spectacular. And sometimes, it just doesn’t matter that the contest is uninteresting because the fact that it is happening is so exciting. When Bayern faced Auckland City in the club world cup this year, in a match that tellingly ended 10-0, the football world cared much less about the actual match than the reality of world-famous multi-millionaire elite athletes facing part-timers from at best a semi-professional club. And sometimes, the results also justify the hype. When Iceland held Argentina to a draw in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, or when North Korea shocked the world in 1966. But as football becomes more and more bloated, such mismatches seem like a routine more than a novelty. 

The lure of competing in a World Cup was not always the lucrative opportunities it would provide. The lure was about being considered as one of the strongest footballing sides in the world. It was about being one of the big guys, for a fragile but memorable few days. It was not about being gleeful about winning a chance to sit at the table where the big guys feel a condescending sense of bemused wonder for the underdogs. It is patronising almost to the point of pity. Sure, there has never been a World Cup where there have been more than a handful of sides who would realistically win and sure, it has almost invariably been one of those sides that were crowned champions. But never before have we seen entire groups becoming mere formalities because not only is football very well informed about the frailties of the underdogs now, but also, there are so many of them. 

The World Cup has long ceased to be a tournament of the best of the best, and some would argue that such a premise would hamper its representative role as a global tournament. But the line should be drawn somewhere. With the expansion of the World Cup beyond what felt like a very rounded and reasonable 32 teams, the jeopardy of the group stage has already been compromised. Most big teams will not need to break a sweat in the groups because their qualification to the knock-outs is nearly guaranteed. And that is because the World Cup has had to shed the pretence of being largely competitive. The group stages are bound to feel like an extension of the qualifiers, only more cosmopolitan and well attended. A World Cup qualification does not prove one’s newfound relevance or quality. It merely proves that a qualification journey has been managed well. That is no mean feat. Cape Verde has defeated Cameroon in their qualifying group. But that’s about it. For more established national teams, the World Cup qualification has lost almost all jeopardy. Not falling for banana skins is all that is asked. 

In a world where FIFA tries to buy more support from the weaker confederations and keeps on milking the cash cow of the World Cup, it is only natural that, despite criticism from concerned authorities, the World Cup will keep getting bigger. That will mean more new entrants. But crucially, that will also mean that the new entries will be less and less fulfilling. When Cameroon qualified for their first World Cup, a 24-team tournament in 1982, they got knocked out in the first group stage, but they didn’t lose a single game. They held their own against the would-be champions and would be the second runner-up in Italy and Poland. It was the contest that drew the fans towards the underdogs. Now, underdogs rarely get such admiration; rather, they get sympathy, or worse still, pity, for they are expected to face indignity at a stage where one can’t hide from the spotlights. A bigger World Cup does not really welcome newer teams. In a highly stratified world of football, a bigger World Cup reminds them how far away they are from owning a seat at the top table.