For most fans outside the major footballing powerhouses, international qualifiers can be a crushing bore. But a body like Uefa that oversees the game at its highest level must not be afraid to think outside the box and try out ideas to enliven qualification.
The process is already incredibly complex and demanding. It has to be if it is to deliver the best possible competition at the final tournament. That is why it must continue to evolve, even if the naysayers complain.
It is a system that has evolved over the decades, but the core of it remains unchanged. Teams are grouped into zones that roughly correspond to continents, and they compete for a fixed number of berths in the final tournament. The tournament winner traditionally receives an automatic berth, but the rest are determined on a stand-alone basis.
The qualifiers are well into their third round, with two nations in each of the nine groups playing home-and-away round-robin games. The top-two sides in each group will qualify for the World Cup, with the runners-up advancing to the inter-confederation play-offs.
The four lowest-ranked OFC teams entered the first round in September 2024, where they played a three-match knockout format. American Samoa and the Cook Islands eliminated each other, and Samoa beat Tonga in the final to advance. The winning team, Samoa, then joined the seven highest-ranked OFC nations in two four-team groups that met in October and November 2024. Samoa and New Zealand finished as the top-two finishers in each group, and New Caledonia will now face a two-legged playoff against Japan to determine the other country in the play-offs.