Quote Originally Posted by lardy View Post
But that's the point, how else will you decide who the best 32 teams are? In fact it's 31 as the hosts qualify.

Saudi Arabia and Syria (who haven't qualified yet) are from the Asia qualifying section, not just the Middle East. SA finished above Australia.

Spain and Italy were unlucky to be in the same group as each other so one was always going to go to the playoffs. It's only because a shit team like Wales was wrongly put in pot 1 that this happened, which was a complete disgrace. The seedings should reflect historical achievement, not recent merit.
Historical achievements like losing to Costa Rica in the last world cup, which is what Italy did.Or Spain who lost 5-1 to the Netherlands and 2-0 to Chile.