Recently, German football legend Toni Kroos talked about the World Cup expansion in an interview with Camel Live. He stated that the group stages will become very boring after the expansion, and in his opinion, Italy deserves direct qualification for the tournament.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the first edition after expansion, yet among the 16 new qualifying spots, Europe only gets 3 additional places. This has sparked intense discussions from all sides. Following the recent draw for the European World Cup Qualifiers Playoffs, several strong teams are facing a difficult four-way battle for one spot, further fueling debates over quota allocation. Former German international Christoph Kramer directly voiced his dissatisfaction during a TV show: “Europe only has 16 spots in total—what on earth is that about?”
When discussing the controversial issue of Europe receiving too few spots after the expansion, Kroos also shared his views. He said: “I don’t think that so-called theory applies to every country. Take Italy, for example—you have the strength to qualify directly. If you can do that, you don’t have to complain about too few spots.”
"But it has to be admitted that Europe’s share of World Cup spots is indeed too small. I have always believed that the density of talent among European teams is the highest in the world, far exceeding other continents. With 32 teams, 16 European spots were quite reasonable, but when expanding to 48 teams, Europe still only has 16 spots—that ratio is clearly unbalanced," the Real Madrid legend added.
Kroos believes there are simply too many teams participating in the World Cup. With 48 teams and the current quota system, there will be—he is 100% certain—numerous boring group games with lopsided scorelines.
The 2014 World Cup winner also worries that "around 20 teams" will participate with a "just here to take part" mindset. “These teams have no competitiveness at all and are unable to compete for any qualification spots. At that point, there will definitely be a lot of one-sided matches in the group stages.”
He emphasized that the World Cup should showcase thrilling showdowns and high-level competition, "regardless of which continent the teams are from. There are also less strong teams in Europe. While qualifying is a good thing for many countries, it does nothing to improve the quality of group stages or increase the suspense of the games."
