Does being in the UEFA region make world cup qualifying harder?

[eatmyshorts]

53 nations in the European draw, England get their nemesis Croatia AGAIN! But is being in Europe a disadvantage to qualifying?

South America just has a single league for qualifying because it has fewer countries, this time with 4 qualifying and one in a play off. This guarantees Brazil and Argentina almost certainly always qualify.

North American qualifying is even more meaningless, with USA and Mexico the only teams strong enough to take automatic spots over Canada and a string of tiny islands.

Europe is a tough prospect and there are always notable absences.

Should world cup qualifying be world wide?

[macedonian]

It is without any doubt whatsoever that it is tougher to qualify through UEFA than any other division. Even most of the weaker teams in UEFA are good teams. So yes Bart, you are right.

However, it is also an advantage to be in UEFA that you should become more competive as you have since you are playuing such good teams, that does not solve the problem of not qualifying.

This is the big reason, that in many ways, the EURO is a higher quality tournament than the World Cup. Of course the down side to that is teams like Brazil and Argentina are not present, that makes it lower in some respects.