UEFA shortens qualifying schedule

With the subtraction of one spot in the World Cup Finals (its 14th entry became Africa's 6th), UEFA is down to 13 spots for qualifying. Still, the same number of teams will advance through qualifying as in 2006 since Germany was then granted automatic admission.

This time, the ruling body of UEFA has decided to mercifully decrease the number of matches a team would have to play in order to qualify. This year, the 53 European teams will be split into nine groups. Eight groups will have six teams, and one group will have five teams. Each group winner will qualify for the 2010 World Cup while the eight best second-place finishers will advance to four separate two-leg playoffs. This system seem reasonable, until your team ends up being the ninth-best second-place finisher. Really, wouldn't the ninth-best second place finisher be able to make the case that it managed to finish second in what ended up being an evenly-matched group?

This system is in contrast from the 2006 qualifiers where the 52 teams were split into eight groups. Three groups had seven teams and five groups had six teams. In this system, the eight group winners advance to the World Cup, along with the two best second-place finishers. The other six second-place squads then played three separate two-leg playoffs. This system, while slightly more drawn out, was more fair than the current system because all teams that finished second in their groups were given another chance to qualify.