From quintessence to fair?
FIFA President Gianni Infantino once joked about "doing everything to get the Italian national team back to the World Cup", with the proposal to increase the number of participating teams to 64, or even 208 teams. On Sunday (July 12), he officially mentioned this issue, but not only Italy but he mentioned "the whole world".
When hosting the World Cup, it is important to think about the whole world, not just Europe and South America," he said, "Every country needs to have the right to dream of participating in the World Cup. The quality of teams globally is increasing. If small football backgrounds are not given opportunities, they will lack the motivation to continue developing.
On the one hand, "opening up opportunities" and "creating motivation for development" are good intentions, but in the assessment of many people - including the coaches of the teams competing at the 2026 World Cup, increasing the number of teams "turns the tournament into something ordinary and normal". People still call the World Cup the "largest football festival on the planet", but behind the shirt of equality and movement development, increasing the number seems to take away the quintessence of the World Cup.
World Cup history is woven by special stories. Winning tickets to the finals through cruel screening in the qualifiers is happiness, is a great value. The 32-team format was previously a "golden ratio" - enough space for representatives from all continents, but enough narrow to ensure that every match in the finals is a top-level showdown. Each time the number of teams increases is a time when the festival of quintessence comes closer to becoming a "public fair".
When nearly one-third of FIFA members participate, the World Cup ticket is no longer a reward for outstanding excellence, but becomes a privilege distributed in large quantities. When scarcity is eliminated, the value of the tournament also automatically decreases.
What if Southeast Asia is awarded 1 or 0.5 slots?
There are many other issues that follow, but experts believe that the possibility of the World Cup increasing to 64 teams is very high. Protesting will be meaningless - just like when people protest about the 48-team World Cup. So the question is how to anticipate opportunities, especially for Southeast Asia in general, and for Vietnam in particular.
Although the essence of the World Cup has declined, for football low-lying areas like Southeast Asia, this could be an opportunity, a historical lever. With the old qualifying format, the Southeast Asian region (AFF) still faces many difficulties in competing. To meet the desire for "World Cup for the whole world", in the 64-team scenario, FIFA can reserve 1 spot (or 0.5 intercontinental play-off spots) for this region.
At that time, the qualifying round of 11 Southeast Asian teams can be organized like the South American region (10 countries) - a 2-round round, determining the only ticket to the final or play-off with representatives from a region also belonging to Asia or other continents. Thus, the "stimulating development" factor will be better promoted.
Currently and in the future of a few years, the competitiveness in Southeast Asia is still only with teams such as: Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, more challenges from Malaysia, Philippines, but when everyone sees the World Cup opportunity closer, that itself also forces football nations to take action to find ways, find a path of development suitable for themselves. Winning tickets is in the immediate future, competing in the World Cup arena is a distant goal, to as Mr. Infantino said about "the level gap between continents is narrowing".
Of course, this is just a hypothesis, a guess. But no matter how many teams there are at the World Cup, football still has to find its own suitable direction and develop seriously and sustainably.
