Scaly piscine said:
Haven't African teams lost every game so far bar one - where Tunisia got a late goal to draw against Saudi Arabia?
I fail to see how Africa would merit another place with that record.
And that's got nowt to do with the group drawings, where the two decent sides to make it through qualifying have both been placed in groups with two of the top ten sides in the world? The fact that Senegal, quarter-finalists from four years ago, missed out, suggests that competition among the African teams is too tough and there needs to be expansion (a bit like Spain nearly missed out on this cup, then goes on to beat Ukraine 4-0). Anyway, if you look at the last 12 years or so, Africa's definitely the strongest of the four
Europe have enough places, it's shown by teams like Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Scotland, Serbia/Montenegro, Ukraine, Eire, Austria turning up at the World Cup at regular intervals.
Asia have enough places by far - the only reason they got more is because they hosted WC02 and somehow managed to scrap in a half-place in addition to the two hosts. Then they refused to give it away. Korea were awful against Togo and barely scraped a win, Iran = Angola, Saudis = Tunisia, and Japan < Australia. Luckily Australia gets in AFC now so there's a bit of competition for Japan and Korea, at least.
North America have been appalling all cup, with the exception of Trini & Tobago with their slight genius of a coach.
South America have the high-altitude teams who get through anyway on their home record (Bolivia 94, Ecuador 02 and 06), but Ecuador have actually done fairly well, and, importantly, football is religion down there. However, there's only so many places you can give to a continent with 10 teams without making the qualifiers pointless.
Oceania are crap without Australia.
No, the only continent to deserve more places is Africa - footballing talent, tough competition for places, and a massive amount of countries fighting for them - but, since there's no money in Africa, they'll be lucky to stay at five.