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Which smaller nations are those? What regional qualifying system? Why are a poor Italy side deserving of a place over 'smaller nations' who are there on merit?

really? Why not just allow the 'big' European teams and perhaps call it the Euros? or maybe we can continue your version of the same elitism shown that has turned European club competition into a farce since the days of the Champions Cup or the Cup Winners Cup. Teams that have never, and will never be champions competing in a TV cash-cow solely for the benefit of rich clubs and who look down on any 'small' teams who have the audacity to actually qualify then have to go through multiple qualifying rounds before they can meet a rich team who finished 4th or 5th in their league. Which small nations might you be referring to ? The 5 regional qualifiers out of 46 teams from the Asian/Middle East conference who had to play 4 different sets of qualifying rounds to get there? Perhaps you mean the 5 African teams who also had to face three different qualifying competitions to whittle it down from 53 teams and get through? Surely you cannot mean the 3 North/Central American nations (from 35 participants) who had to go through 5 different rounds of qualification to get there? I will assume your disdain for the smaller nations does not extend to the 14 UEFA or 5 CONMEBOL (South America) qualifiers as they are far better .... even though 5 of 10 nations qualified in South America from a single round-robin competition where they played each other home and away, and 14/52 in Europe who played 1 set of qualifying fixtures and then the playoffs. Of the 32 qualifiers, only Iceland and Panama will be making their first appearance and they are there on merit. If Italy, Netherlands (and Scotland) are not there it is because those nations were not good enough over the course of the entire campaign to qualify. simple. Also - of the 32 qualifiers ... and leaving aside those qualifying for the first time ... only 3 teams of the 32 have failed to move on form the group stages in previous appearances .... Egypt (group stages in 1934/1990), Tunisia (group stages in 1978, 1998, 2002, 2006) and Iran (group stages in 1978, 1998, 2006, 2014) Personally, I am going to be cheering for some of these small nations during the World Cup: Iceland & Morocco are my teams of choice for now as I had tremendous vacations in both places and the people were brilliant. I would really love one of these two nations to do what Iceland did in the last tournament and stick a huge middle finger up to those folks who think they should not be there, or who look down their noses at them despite the effort it took to get there.

Fek all wrong with people living down the ferry you effin snob. Hope your car breaks down when you are down there and you get chewed.

No but they train here!

I see from the bbc study we have the most expensive pies In the division and probably the worst quality.

I noticed the other day that 4 times winners of the world cup, have failed to qualify' This is the first time since 1958 that Italy and their free flowing lovely football will not be seen gracing our TV sets.The 1958 FIFA World Cup, the sixth staging of the World Cup, was hosted by Sweden from 8 to 29 June TV sets - well in 1958 hardly anyone had one . There were two basics channels , BBC and ITV which was in its in fantasy, Very few people had ITV. To convert your receiver to what was know at the time as band wave 3, you had to buy what was called a Cydron unit. It entailed drilling a hole in the side of your TV set ftiiin box with a knob on you pulled to change from band one to band 3, you then had to turn the knob to tune into ITV . There were two wires attached to the box that you plugged into sockets you had previously removed the valves. You can see that watching the world cup on the telly was hopeless. There was a program on Wednesday evenings called sports view. This had films of some of the matches usually a week old In 1958 all 4 of the home nations qualified for the world cup. England and Scotland were if my memory serves me right were iliminated after the first round . Wales and Northern Ireland went through to the second round, The Wales tem with the great John Charles ( In my view the best player to lace his boots ) played France in the 2nd round. No match on TV but worse still not on the Radio, we called the wireless, Broadcasting live from Stockholm was difficult even for Radio. I dib manage as a 14 year old to get my Dads short wave radio to work and I picked up the broadcast in French . Can you imagine today not being able to get France v Wales in the world cup on the Radio. John Charles I mentioned was known as the Gentle Giant, he was amazingly skilfully, I saw him play live a couple of times for Leeds United, a very great player. He was transferred to Torino where he became a legend. I am told that a statue of John Charles stands outside the ground in Turin to this day. When as an old man he visited the ground and the fans cheered and cheered him. Now I Italy has no place in the World cup. yet lots of small nations will be there, because of the regional qualifying system, I don't agree with.

And I'm sure the people of many of these silly little countries who are there on merit will be absolutely crestfallen to find out that Laurence's imperial arrogance means that he'll be watching snooker or cricket... Italy and the Netherlands have been absolutely garbage for the last couple of years. You though would rather watch them than more deserving teams though, as you're a snob.

I suppose I can only put forward my point of view, which I am sure very few will agree with But I can think of at least 14 of the qualifiers I would not be interested in one iota - If I switched on my TV and saw the likes of Egypt or Costa Rica playing , Quite frankly I would prefer to see Italy of the Netherlands locking horns If you take out the European teams and the top 3 or 4 South American outfits. The world cup is full of teams I would not watch if there was cricket or snooker on another channel I mean Saudi Arabia , I ask you List Egypt Morocco Nigeria Senegal Tunisia Qualified teams Australia Iran Japan Korea Republic Saudi Arabia Qualified teams Belgium Croatia Denmark England France Germany Iceland Poland Portugal Russia Serbia Spain Sweden Switzerland Qualified teams Costa Rica Mexico Panama Qualified teams Argentina Brazil Colombia Peru Uruguay Matches