Eight of the 10 most populous countries did not go to the World Cup.

The attention-grabbing event occurred on June 17, when Lionel Messi scored his first goal of the 2026 World Cup, plunging the ball past the Algerian goalkeeper. But the ecstatic audience weren't Argentines at all — they were locals who had gathered to watch at an open-air venue in Dhaka. Bangladesh Similar events are also taking place in cities in India and Indonesia. Many people wear Argentina's national team shirts and praise Messi as the team they support. This is because their country continually misses out on the opportunity to play in the World Cup. Of the world's 10 most populous countries, only two have qualified for the current tournament, the United States and Brazil, while Russia and Nigeria have appeared at multiple World Cups. China and Indonesia have only qualified once before. India, the world's most populous country, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Pakistan have yet to play in an official World Cup. Although India was considered to have qualified for the final round in 1950, they ultimately withdrew less than a month before the tournament began. "It is unacceptable that a country with millions of football fans can lag this far behind in football," Udite Karim, a Bangladeshi actor, writer and football fan, told the BBC. Economics and football academic Stefan Schemansky explains that population size alone is not enough for success in football. In theory, a larger population means a group of people with more potential. But other important factors include funding and infrastructure such as training grounds and talent discovery systems. Schemansky, a co-author of the book Soccernomics, noted that successful countries also have wealth associated with them. Their research found that countries often need an average annual per capita income of around US$15,000 to win major tournaments, but this is the case for Brazil and Argentina. which has an average income lower than this figure but is able to win the World Cup championship It shows that the factors of football knowledge and skills (know-how) are very important. Knowledge and experience are often accumulated over long periods of playing football. Football's early heydays are often enduring successes. For example, Uruguay has a population of only about 3.5 million, but they were two-time world champions (1930 and 1950) and began playing long before other nations in the region. Uruguay's first international match was in 1902, while Brazil played their first international match much later. for many nations in Africa and South Asia Football developed at a slower pace. Therefore, it lags behind countries in Europe and South America that have long had high levels of competition. This helps us understand why some countries were able to overtake them, such as Morocco being the only African nation to reach the semi-finals at the 2022 World Cup, and South Korea being the only Asian nation to finish in the top four as co-hosts in 2002. But there are countries like Indonesia, India, and Bangladesh that are still unable to catch up. Chemansky sees the main reason as a lack of resources, talent, and experience. Even with increased investment, there is still a problem with know-how. Ethiopia has never qualified for the World Cup. Although they had won the African Football Championship (AFCON) in 1962 and had the closest chance in the 2014 qualifying round, when they reached the final round of qualifying but lost to Nigeria in a home-away series. In addition, professional football within the country faces a severe lack of investment. One of the problems is the lack of licensed stadiums to host competitions. This has forced the professional league to play more than 380 matches in just three stadiums, according to Kifel Seife, CEO of the Ethiopian Premier League, in an interview with The Reporter on June 27. The lack of stadiums has also resulted in the men's national team having to use Morocco as their home stadium for qualifying rounds. Some countries also face problems from their success in other sports. India, for example, is a cricket powerhouse and has the richest league, the IPL, causing children and parents to focus more on cricket than former India international Shyam Thapa points out that the success of the IPL has made it difficult to recruit middle and upper level footballers. But some experts point out that That's just an excuse. Udite Karim says countries like Australia and New Zealand have made it to the World Cup despite being dominant cricket nations. So the popularity of cricket is no real excuse. The case of China is interesting to follow. Its strategy is to invest a lot of money and bring famous players from South America and Europe to its home league. But performances at the World Cup have not been successful for a long time. Beijing-based football expert Mark Dreyer says the main problem is top-down state control. which lacks decisions from those with direct football knowledge China has not returned to the World Cup since 2002. Indonesia has only played in one World Cup in 1938 as the Dutch East Indies, while their run in the 2026 qualifiers is well thought out, having reached the final round of qualifying. But this performance has the factor of calling on a large number of Indonesian players who were born and raised in Europe to help the team. Therefore, there are many players in Indonesia's starting line-up who were born in Europe. According to Jerome Wierawan, BBC Indonesian news editor, Pakistan and Bangladesh were eliminated from the Asian Qualifiers from the group stage without winning any of their six matches. Pakistan has also been banned from international competition three times by the International Football Federation between 2017 and 2025 due to political interference in the governing body. For football fans in many countries The dream of seeing your country in the World Cup may still be far away. In the meantime, Udite Karim offers a realistic view: "I don't see the possibility of seeing Bangladesh play in a World Cup in my lifetime," she said, but she stressed that the compensation is to celebrate and experience the joy of the tournament with fans around the world.