Why India will qualify for the 2026 World Cup ?

by Shaon Roy February 3, 2017

No need to double check the heading, yes, we are talking about India playing in the FIFA world Cup. And no, I am not insane, my mom had me checked.
A fortnight ago, FIFA confirmed that it has expanded the FIFA world Cup 2026 into a 48 Teams affair. This means that the 2026 edition of World Cup will have 16 more teams than its previous editions.

FIFA World Cups started in 1930, Uruguay being the host for that edition also successfully managed to claim the trophy. Only 13 teams took part in that edition. After this, FIFA increased the number of slots for the final round of FIFA World Cup to 16.
World Cup remained a 16 team affair up untill the 1978 World Cup which was both hosted and won by Argentina. Then from 1982’s Cup in Spain, the World Cup was made open to 24 teams and it was only as recently as 1998 that FIFA decided to let 32 teams play in the final round. So, now after a gap of 28 years FIFA will again increase the number of participating teams.

Now, lets get back to India and its chances.
Till the 2022 World Cup, the Asia Confedartion will get 4 sure slots out of the 32 available slots. Europe will get (13) slots , North America (3.5) , Africa (5), South America (4.5) OFC (1).
But from the 2026 World Cup, Asia will have 8.5 slots available to them. The half slots representing teams going to the play-offs.

If the 8.5 slots were to be awarded purely on the basis of the present FIFA ranking then these are the teams that would qualify for the 2026 World Cup from the Asian Confederation (AFC).

Needless to say, these are some of the heavyweight teams of Asia but where does India stands against them ?
Over the past 1 year the India Under-17 had the opportunity to play against some of these heavyweights. Of course against the Under-17 squad of the respective teams.
Saudi Arabia :
Now ranked 48 in the World FIFA ranking and 5th in the Asian ranking. India U17 boys had the opportunity to play against them during the 2016 U16 AFC Championship.
The Game started pretty well for India , they started dictating terms to their West Asian counterparts. India U17 was 2 goals up just within the first 25 minutes of the game.
The turning point of the match came in the 80th minute when a lapse of concentration from the Indian side costed them two back to back goals.
The Match ended in a 3-3 draw. With Suraj Wangjam scoring the last goal for India at the 90+5 minutes. Thats how dramatic the game was.

China PR:
We faced them in the BRICS Cup back in 2016. Both the teams played in the same manner throughout the game and it was only the goal at 90+5 mins from China’s U17 player Cong, that separated the two teams.
FT: India 0-1 China

United Arab Emirates:
This was India U17’s first game in the 2016 AFC U16 Champioship. Yet again the Indian team had a sensational start. We were leading by 2 goals to 1 against UAE (A country ranked 69 in the World) in the first half itself. Then due to some poor defending mistakes and lack of concentration from the Indian side, the UAE players scored two goals in the second half. Ending the game 3-2 in favour of UAE.
South Korea:
This was India U17’s one of the best performance . We played against them in the Youth Cup. Here we completely dominated this Asian superpower. We were literally toying with them, we had the most ball posession, our players were displaying out of the world football skills, all in all, it was a super performance from our boys. The only thing missing was a goal as the Korean team parked the bus with all of their 10 players in the back line defending.
No one would have been able to guess that the difference in FIFA ranking between the two teams were 120 at that time.
The Game ended with a scoreline of 0 – 0 (Draw).

Iran:
India U17 team faced Iran two times and the stories has been completely different each time.
The first occasion we faced them was in the AFC U16 tournament. We lost that game by 3-0. Iran’s first goal came from its brightest young prospect Ghadari, in the 23rd minute of the match. The next two goals from Iran were at the 81st and 90+1 minute of the match, both the goals were from the penalty spot. They dominated us for most of the match and needless to say they were technically superior to us and displayed much better team co-ordination.
Then came the Granatkin Cup, here we faced Iran for the second time. We were much better prepared this time around and it showed on the pitch. We were clearly the better team that day (17th jan 2017).
Right from the very begining we had our attack mode on and was having a go at the goal every 2-3 minutes. India’s biggest moment came in the 8th minute when Abhijit Sarkar failed to tap in the ball into an open net. Iran on the other hand struck the back of the Indian net at 39th minute.
During the second half, the Indian team uppped its ante but was unable to score a goal. We are attacking from the left , from the right , from the centre and this made the Iranian defence was defend on their toes. Being unable to cope up with the Indian attack their defence even conceeded a red card. Inspite of all our effort we couldnt manage to get a goal.
We were so impressive that even the Iranian coach had to praise our players.

Here is what Iran’s Head Coach has to say about India’s performance:

But for some reason I feel he understated our U17 boys performances. He claimed that ” in some of the moments the Indian players were better than the Iran players.”
Anyone who has watched the game knows that India was the better team for most part of the game.

This shows that our U17 Boys are improving at a faster rate than Asian Superpower Iran.
Presently, if not better our Under-17 boys are at par with the best Asian teams and the rate at which we are improving we will no doubt possess some serious threat to these teams in the future.
Though this is not a perfect parameter to measure our chances for qualification to the World Cup but this is the only parameter we have. And for some reason this does make some sense. As this U-17 Indian boys will be around 23 years old when the qualification process for the 2026 World Cup will start and 26 years when the actual world cup will begin.
Maybe this article is a bit too optimistic but then again we are Indians and its completely okay for us to be an optimist !
And we at FootballCounter.com truly believe Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement and nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
“Turn your face towards the sun and the shadown fall behind you” – Anonymous.