The last eight.

We now know the last eight of the football World Cup and all of them won their respective groups showing that FIFA got its seeding right. The teams are equally divided between Europe with 4 out of 13 and the Americas with 4 out of 10. Can India qualify for the World Cup? Probably not in the next 50 years and never if we do not bring our population down. Among the last 8 little Costa Rica has just 4.6 million people while Belgium has 11.2 million. Of the larger countries France has a population of 66.6 million, Germany has 81.9 million and Brazil has the largest with 201 million. Compare that with India which has 1200 million people, which is 6 times that of Brazil and 300 times that of Costa Rica, crammed into 3.3 million sq km while Brazil is almost 3 times the land area at 8.5 million sq km. Although the GDP of India at $1.9 trillion is nearly equal to that of Brazil at $2.2 trillion, per capita income automatically becomes one sixth that of Brazil's. Children in India have no grounds to play in, their diet is poor and pollution levels are much higher so we cannot reach the level of skill, strength and stamina required to play at that level. Out of the 8 games in the round of 16, four went to extra time which meant that the players had to play another 30 minutes on top of the 90 minutes they had already played. It was astonishing to watch players from Algeria, which is a hot country north of the Sahara, falling down with cramps but the Germans, from cool northern Europe, continuing to chase the ball. Nigeria and Algeria notwithstanding the performance of African nations was shameful. Most of their players play for the top clubs of Europe so they are not lacking in talent. Corruption is their biggest problem. Like in India board officials are corrupt and steal money meant for players. Each country receives $8 million from the FIFA for playing at the World Cup and the winner receives $35 million. Players are paid bonuses from that money but officials try to steal even that. The President of Ghana had to send a special plane with $3 million in cash to pay the players after near riot. Imagine playing with $100,000 stuck inside your underpants. The football federation of Cameroon is investigating 7 players for match fixing. Cameroon lost 4-0 to Croatia, which was predicted by a convicted fixer, and one player received a red card for unnecessarily elbowing an opponent. The refereeing has been astonishing with European teams getting the benefit in most cases. Brazil has 8 yellow cards to Germany's 2. Outraged at losing the 2022 World Cup to Qatar the Sunday Times in Britain has alleged that FIFA officials were bribed. Perhaps referees are also fixed. Perhaps that is how Britain won in 1966 and France in 1998. Why open a can of worms?