So after the end of the qualifications one question remained, due to the enlarged World Cup finals – who was left out? There were always strong teams unable to qualify before. And now?
Japan was just starting her football program and South Korea was not even beginning its her own, so Asia hardly had any team of class – except Iran.
Arguably, they had the strongest domestic championship, developed during the 1970s and in 1978 the national team played well, showing lots of potential. But then the revolution took place, the old government went to dust and the new religious rulers took power. Football was left behind and Iran did not participate at all in the qualifications.
Africa. Perhaps South Africa. It was said, that football was lively, professional, popular, and may be the best on this continent. This was the only African country European players went frequently to play a season or two – mostly British, German, and Dutch. But it was also all hearsay – South Africa was expelled from world football for a long time, nobody saw their football, divided into racial lines. It is more than questionable an apartheid system could make a decent team.
Perhaps Ghana. Often continental champions and considered maybe the best football playing nation on this continent. But this was also a rumor, depending on who one listened to. The plain truth was that Ghana never reached World Cup finals so far and, unlike other countries, hardly had any well known professionals based in Europe.
CONCACAF. NASL was one thing, but USA and Canada were something else – the hype and constant import of stars did not help domestic football a bit. Since neither country took the obvious other road – to naturalize foreign players, who did not play for national teams before, both countries were extremely weak. The only missing the finals team was Mexico.
No matter what, Mexico was the strongest football nation in North and Central America. They had a good number of strong players at that time – Hugo Sanchez is enough to mention. But they had only themselves to blame for not going to the finals. Yet, they would have been stronger finalist than either of the CONCACAF representatives.
South America. Uruguay. Yes, they were in the toughest group. But they just won Mundialito and there was a new promising young generation, revival seemingly was taking place.
Revival, if any, was apparently at very early stage and Uruguay in reality was perhaps not worse, but surely not better than Chile or Peru. One may lament the old glory, but currently Uruguay had not a team to be missed. Paraguay was similar, although was less clout.
Europe. Now, here was a team ‘left behind’ – Holland. Memories were fresh, players were still famous, even definitive for the last decade, Dutch players were hot commodity. What could be a World Cup without Oranje? What a bitter fate – they were unlucky to be in the toughest possible qualification group.
In any other qualification group Holland would have qualified, that was quite clear. But in the same time Holland was in decline, made very obvious at the 1980 European championship. The new generation was not even close to the mighty Dutch of the 1970s. And the crisis was not going to go away if they qualified – very likely, playing at the finals would have been a bitter disappointment for everyone. Tough, physical team, but nothing special.
May be Sweden… never favourites, never having very powerful team, the Swedes always played with big hearts, even above their level, and endeared everybody.
But at the 1978 World Cup they showed decline and lack of new talented players. The team above tried, as Swedes ever did, but had too many shortcoming and was not able to impress. Decline settled – yes, like Holland, if in another qualification group and a bit of luck, they could have reached the finals. But definitely Sweden was not a team left behind – with or without them, the finals were not to be different.
Recapitulation. The new formula of the World Cup practically allowed all strong teams of the world to play at the finals. Before it was mostly Europeans teams missing the finals, but not so now. Only Holland – and it was a big ‘maybe’ – may had some larger impact on the finals. Only CONCACAF would have been represented better – in that only in half – by Mexico. May be for the first time all strong teams of the world were going to be seen at the finals.