211 to 1: World Cup 2026 Elimination Timeline (R)

58. Wales
57. Republic of Ireland

two more will be added tonight, and then six more on Tuesday

 

56. Suriname

 

Interesting to note that 5 of the 13 UEFA teams from USA '94 are already out of this year's tournament (Bulgaria, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Romania, and a currently banned Russia). Sweden and Italy are still to be determined.

Only Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland have confirmed their qualification thus far.

Edit: Sweden, not Denmark.

 

55. New Caledonia.

Valiant effort, but not enough to make it past Jamaica.

 

56. Kosovo and 57. Poland

 

56. Denmark
55. Italy

lol at both.

 

Denmark and Italy are actually 52 and 51 I think. The loser of DRC-Jamaica will be 50 and the loser of Iraq-Bolivia 49.

 

55 and 54, I meant

EDIT:
Wait you're right

 

The correct way is:

54. Poland
53. Kosovo
52. Denmark
51. Italy

The loser of DR Congo v Jamaica will be 50. and the loser of Iraq v Bolivia will be 49.

 

50. Jamaica

 

49. Bolivia.

 

The last eliminations were 897 days after the first eliminations. I made a spreadsheet that lists every team's elimination type (group stage, aggregate, or one game), outcome when they were eliminated (win, draw, loss, or did not play), round they were eliminated in, elimination date, and order. If anybody wants my spreadsheet, email evanj3535@gmail.com to request it.

 

So even the 48 team expansion couldnt prevent high profile casualties like Italy, Denmark, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chile, Jamaica, Costa Rica.

Im saying those concacaf teams because they shouldn't have missed out with 3.5 places for grabs without USA, Canada, Mexico.

The only confederation where everything went as it should without any shocks is AFC, and to a much smaller extent Conembol.

It's no coincidence that those 2 confederations have the most in depth qualification systems that literally leave nothing to chance and ensure their best teams qualify.

UEFA can blame their Nations league, and trying to give it more importance than it deserves for Italy and Denmark failing out. I doubt that happens over 2 legs. Instead we get Sweden who played like complete garbage in qualifying and they go through via Nations league.

 

A pretty good summary. CAF have always had a cut throat qualifying system and they didn't take the opportunity of increased reps to make it less cut throat. AFC stuck with multiple rounds with multiple progression to ensure one upset didn't eliminate a top level team. UEFA made theirs even more cut throat.

 

No way QAT deserved qualifying directly out of AFC. It even hosted its final qualifiers phase, just like KSA did.

Just imagine UEFA pulling crap like that so ITA would survive its UEFA playoffs.

QAT ended up last-place in 2022, despite being WC host. That's how bad a WC team it is:
https://www.thesoccerworldcups.com/world_cups/2022_final_standings.php

 

They should have just had Italy host both qualifying playoffs. It would have made more sense due to FIFA rankings. A random draw made little to no sense. No offense to Bosnia but they were beneficiaries of the luck of the draw.

 

Yeah but I don't really see any AFC teams that didn't make the World Cup who are any better than Qatar.

They have won the last 2 AFC Cups, let's at least give them that.

 

What about UAE? They actually beat Qatar twice in the qualifiers (3-1 and 5-0). They also finished above them on points in the third round, and realistically they should have been the ones hosting the fourth round as well.

 

This.

 

Yet Qatar beat them in the most recent fixture.

I mean we can nitpick but Qatar are 2 time Asian champions. I dont think there is much difference between them and UAE.

Certainly nowhere near Italy/Denmark and Bosnia/Czechia/Scotland.

Or Nigeria and South Africa/Cape Verde

 

Sorry, here I thought we were talking about WC qualifiers in a WC elimination timeline thread.

Continental champ status means very little if that champ places dead-last in a WC tournament it hosted.

 

You're judging Qatar on 3 games 4 years ago. Continental Champs means a lot when you are qualifying from that Continent. Qatar qualifying wasn't some major upset like you are making out.

 

Correction:
- I said QAT was dead-last in a WC tournament from 41 months ago.
- You judge QAT on non-WC qualifiers matches from 38 months ago.

QAT got stomped on during 2022 WC (Nov 2022; 0pts, -6 goal diff). Then, became Asian Cup champ 3 months later.

One thing has got nothing to do with the other, especially in a WC context. Do you comprehend now?

 

Qatar have won the last two Asian Cups. I'm saying that Qatar qualifying as one of the top 8 Asian sides wasn't an upset. If they missed out that would have been an upset. I thought I was quite clear about that.

I disagreed with what you said. That doesn't mean I didn't understand it.

 

Is it too early to add Scotland?