Iran scotland egypt tunisia these are all traditionally "decent" teams, roughly part of the top 40 for most of their history/a long time, yet out of all the traditional top 40 who at least qualified once, these are the only teams who never made it to the round of 16. their fans deserve better. scotland is the unluckiest, 8 appearances yet 0 times past the group stage, with an elo ranking of 38. Iran is the 2nd most unluckiest, 4 appearances, with an elo ranking of 21. then tunisia with 4 appearances and elo ranking of 52, then egypt with 2 appearances and an elo ranking of 48. at least egypt won the african nations cup many times recently, and tunisia won it once but recently. Iran won the asian cup but its been over 4 decades since the last trophy. scotland never won anything. obviously, scotland did not qualify this time, so this leaves us with Iran, egypt, and tunisia to cheer for at russia 2018. the fans deserve something to cheer about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natio...Cup#Ranking_of_teams_by_number_of_appearances
i mean its tough when even these traditionally non top 40 teams have all gotten past the group stage: ghana norway greece northern ireland north korea cuba wales slovakia