World Cup expanded to 48 teams.

[NorCalBlue]

I thought with the expansion of the last Euro's made qualifing more exciting as the 'lesser' nations had a genuine shot at qualification.

Yes, of course you're right - I suppose whatever size the qualifying tournament is, it'll be exciting for the teams on the fringes. If they expanded the finals to 195 teams, it'd be exciting to see whether Vanuatu or American Samoa got the final spot. But then it'd be less exciting for New Zealand (for example), who'd easily qualify, but would have to fly all over the place playing glorified friendlies for 18 months, like the top countries will for the 2026 qualifiers.

 

[sir baconface]

I welcome the principle of being more inclusive but just can't see how the detail would work satisfactorily.

16 groups of 3, with 2 going through, is just uncompetitive. Any other permutation would have significant flaws too.

So it's inclusiveness at the expense of significant compromise in footballing terms.