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In the modern world of football, Europe is the most powerful confederation in FIFA and its a shame that FIFA's most powerful confederation doesn't lead the way in how it runs its World Cup qualification.

When it comes to World Cup qualifying, Europe can look to other FIFA confederations on how it should be done. Let's be honest the qualification process for Europe is ridiculous and an absolute joke. CONCACAF has 35 FIFA member nations, Asia has 43, and Europe & Africa each have 53 FIFA nations, and yet UEFA lumps all its teams in 8 or 9 groups instead of following the rest of the world's example of multiple rounds to knockout the smaller teams.

Its ridiculous that teams like Italy, England, Spain, and Netherlands get a free 12 points in the final stage of qualifying against sides like Faroe Islands, San Marino, Malta, and Andorra. When a confederation has more than 30+ members there has to be multiple rounds of elimination to weed out the lesser teams and test the depth of the better teams.

The intensity of interest in European qualifying is dulled by the fact that Portugal can remain alive in qualifying with a win against Malta. MALTA! That's just ridiculous, that's the reason why European World Cup qualifying is the least interesting and one of the easiest. France was in serious trouble in qualifying but they pulled themselves into a playoff by beating the Faroe Islands and Lithuania, HA, 2 soccer giants for sure.

CONCACAF constructed its qualification so that its 6 best teams fight for its 3 automatic spots. Asia can shave its 43 members down to 10 in the final stage and Africa's format leading to 5 groups has led to high drama and new faces in The Great Tournament. Its a simple solution. Europe has 13 spots, create a final round with 6 groups of 4 teams each. Top 2 in each group advance to the World Cup along with the best 3rd place team.

UEFA needs to learn from Asia, Africa, and CONMEBOL and institute multiple qualifying rounds to eliminate the smaller nations. Narrowing the teams down to 6 groups of 4 teams each would generate more interesting matchups and thus more excitement in European qualifying. Because right now its a joke.