World Cup qualifying was long, wacky and historic. This is what we’ve learned

Qualifying is done. The lineup is complete.

The countdown to the biggest-ever World Cup is on, with the 48-team tournament in North America a veritable hodgepodge of stellar names and unheralded upstarts.

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Here’s a look at what we learned from a qualification campaign that lasted 2 1/2 years, featured 2,527 goals, and finished Tuesday with six nations booking the final spots at soccer’s biggest event.

You can qualify for the World Cup without winning a qualifying match

Sweden appears to have done the impossible.

How, people might ask, can a team that didn’t win a match in its qualifying group end up getting to the World Cup?

The answer lies in the quirks of European governing body UEFA’s qualification process.

Sweden drew two and lost four of its six group games, finishing in last place, but was one of the countries given a second chance to qualify for the World Cup via its previous results in the Nations League competition in 2024-25. The Swedes topped their group in League C — the competition’s third tier, where they played Azerbaijan, Slovakia and Estonia — and that ultimately got them a spot in the World Cup playoffs.

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There, they beat Ukraine 3-1 in the semifinals on Thursday and Poland 3-2 in the winner-takes-all match on Tuesday.

Does Sweden deserve to be at the World Cup? Probably not, but they won’t care.

A four-time champion won’t be there … again

It’s happened to Italy again.

One of the great soccer nations — a four-time World Cup winner, no less — has somehow failed to qualify for the largest World Cup in history. Sixteen teams will arrive from Europe, and Italy will not be one of them.

The latest failure, following a penalty-shootout loss to Bosnia-Herzegovina, has sparked another bout of introspection for the national sport. We’ve been here before, of course, after the Azzurri missed out on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup after defeats in the playoffs.

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A poor era of players? Bad governance? Picking the wrong coach? Rotten luck? Plenty of reasons have been given for Italy’s soccer slump that has culminated in what the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper labeled “The…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/world-cup-qualifying-long-wacky-132919506.html

Author : STEVE DOUGLAS and GRAHAM DUNBAR

Publish date : 2026-04-01 13:29:00

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