What is more difficult than Venezuela reaching the World Cup and completing the full attendance in South American football history is the emergence of the third team in Oceania history to enter the Wo

In the 2026 World Cup global qualifiers, the most regrettable thing is Venezuela. They have 4 wins and 4 draws in their previous 8 home games. As long as they win the last home game, they will be guaranteed to qualify for the play-offs. But their mentality collapsed in such an important game. They lost to Colombia 3:6 and were robbed of a play-off spot by Bolivia, which defeated Brazil 1:0.

The most important reason why Venezuela has attracted so much attention is that they are the only one among the 10 teams in South American football that has not reached the World Cup. The expansion of the 2026 World Cup will increase the number of places in all continents. This is definitely a good opportunity for Venezuela. As long as you get into the top six, you will be shortlisted, which is much less difficult than before. No matter what happens, if you finish seventh, you can still play in the play-offs, and there is still a lot of hope. But Venezuela happened to finish eighth, just one step away. From the perspective of the World Cup, it can be said that Venezuela is still a regret for South American football. We always say that Brazil is the only perfect attendance award in the World Cup. If you look at it from another perspective, if all the 10 South American teams have experienced the World Cup, it will also be the only perfect attendance award in the world. But unfortunately, Venezuela is still lagging behind. However, judging from Venezuela's overall performance in this World Cup preliminaries, they have the strength to impact the World Cup. At least, in the context of the expansion of the World Cup and South America's 6.5 quota, their dream of reaching the World Cup is not outrageous, and is even promising. If it doesn’t work this time, maybe it will work next time. In fact, what is more difficult than Venezuela entering the World Cup and completing full attendance in South American football history is the emergence of the third participating team in the history of the World Cup in Oceania. Let’s start with the Oceania World Preliminaries after the army expansion. The most intuitive beneficiary of the expansion of the World Cup is New Zealand. In the past, New Zealand had 0.5 places in Oceania. After getting it, New Zealand had to compete in the unpredictable intercontinental play-offs. However, their strength was not dominant, so in most cases, they had to accept the result of elimination. But now, 1.5 places are equivalent to a direct recommendation to New Zealand.

So, who will get the 0.5 quota? Specifically this time, it’s New Caledonia. This little-known team is actually a microcosm of the football ecology in Oceania. With Australia leaving Asia and leaving New Zealand as the dominant player, Oceania football can be said to be a desert. Very few people know about and pay attention to other teams other than New Zealand. Moreover, their strength, if compared horizontally, is even far lower than the second-tier teams in Asia and Africa. Although New Caledonia has reached the play-offs, it is unrealistic to expect them to pass two levels in a row and go to the United States, Canada and Mexico. And they are already the second-ranked team in Oceania football. In the future World Cup preliminaries, the situation will be similar to other teams. Therefore, the actual situation is that Oceania’s 1.5 quotas are almost equivalent to 1 quota. And the team that gets 0.5 will most likely fail in the play-offs, no matter who it is. Historically, apart from Australia and New Zealand, the only place in Oceania that had any sense of existence was Tahiti, which was also translated as Tahiti. They once reached the 2013 Confederations Cup as the Oceania champions, but their results were disastrous. Perhaps, if Oceania has the third participating team in the World Cup history, it can only count on New Zealand to unexpectedly overturn. It just so happens that a weak team suddenly emerges and gets the 1 in 1.5, allowing New Zealand to play in the play-offs. This possibility exists, but it is very, very small. Therefore, the Oceania participating teams in the history of the World Cup will stay at 2 for a long time. With this topic in mind, we might as well pay attention to New Caledonia's performance in the intercontinental play-offs.