One thing that really grinds the SATO Commish’s gears is when great teams have to prove themselves in silly preliminary qualifiers.
Now I will admit that you need a qualifer for the pure notion that every team deserves a fair chance of making the tournament. Without the qualifiers many small countries would remain unknown to the general public and many undeserving teams would automatically make the tournament every year. So in other words the qualifiers are absolutely necessary to the World Cup, but the Commish just thinks that it could use a shake up.
First off, why does Italy have to qualify for a tournament they won the last time around? Would it not make sense to simply allow the returning champs into the tournament to defend their title?
Now I understand that the World Cup has four years in between each run, so things can obviously change over that period of time. I mean U.S. forward Jozy Altdiore was fifteen years old back then and was likely watching the tournament with a midnight curfew. Now he is a starter on the U.S. squad, so of course many of the players have changed since last Cup.
But Italy was the best squad and such a title should deserve a little more invincibility. If South Africa can get a bid for simply being the host then why not the best squad from the last Cup? To me it is quite clear that Italy should not have to jump through all these hoops.
In the end it doesn’t matter because Italy will be right where they should be. But it would have been nice addition to the World Cup is all.
You be the judge.
I’ll just be the Commish.
