Saudi Arabia had a bad day. That doesn’t mean an expanded World Cup is the end of the world.

Everyone calm down.

It was a common refrain during the opening match of the 2018 World Cup, which Russia won 5-0: Their opponent Saudi Arabia wasn’t very good, and can you imagine what the World Cup will be like when they expand to 48 teams, as FIFA plans to do in 2026 (and possible in 2022)?

The games will blow! They’ll be awful! It’ll be little squat dinguses flailing around on the field, kicking it into their own faces, for 90 straight minutes, every day for a month!

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the expansion to 48 teams, as well as the near total overhaul of international soccer that FIFA seems intent on implementing over the next four to eight years. More games equals more strain on players. Expanded international tournaments will lead to early player retirements. There’s a lot to consider. But to say that an expansion will mean that all the games will be terrible, or that there will be considerably worse teams there than Saudi Arabia, is silly.

Just look at the last women‘s World Cup, which saw an expansion from 16 to 24 teams, and was an objectively great tournament. We had some wonderful games and upsets. Colombia stunned France in what was one of the games of the summer. It was a rousing success, more countries got to be involved, and squads that people thought would get steamrolled more than held their own.

I know it’s tempting to make a judgment about a tournament being held eight years from now on the basis of one Saudi Arabia performance, but maybe we tap the brakes.

If we expand the men’s field to 48 teams, it’s tempting to think that those 16 additional teams will be worse than Saudi Arabia. But one of the points of expanding is to ensure that very good teams aren’t left out of the tournament.

Here, some teams that missed this World Cup, that some of you are very upset aren’t there: Netherlands, Italy, Chile, Cameroon, Ghana, USA, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay, Greece, Ireland, Wales, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Turkey, Slovakia.

They aren’t middling teams, either. Chile are currently ranked No. 9 in the world. No. 9! Italy and Netherlands are both historically very good at soccer. Greece won the Euros in 2004. USA are ... fine!

I realize most of the teams mentioned are from Europe and South America, and the expansion will be focused on Africa, North America and Asia. But let’s not pretend that by expanding the tournament we’re going to be sitting and watching St. Kitts and Nevis take on Brunei Darussalam.

Actually, fuck it, it’s the World Cup, let’s go full Pepe Silvia and dive in on this.

Let’s say this 2018 World Cup was 48 teams. I’m going to oversimplify a little bit here and do some guesswork, but whatever, it‘s a free blog, and you‘re welcome to scream yourself hoarse in the comment section. Here‘s the breakdown of what the qualification slots will look like in a 48-team World Cup:

AFC: eight slots
CAF: nine slots
CONCACAF: six slots
CONMEBOL: six slots
OFC: one slot
UEFA: 16 slots

That’s 46 teams, plus the host and one spot available in a playoff, which will consist of one team from each confederation except UEFA. If we did that expansion for this World Cup, here are the teams that would be added automatically, if qualification was set up the same:

Italy, Northern Ireland, Greece, New Zealand, Chile, Honduras, United States, Trinidad & Tobago, Syria, Uzbekistan, United Arab Emirates, Congo, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast

And in that new playoff for the final spot, I’m going to play Soccer Blog God for a second and guess that Paraguay come out of that playoff. Do not question the Soccer Blog God while he’s making a Made Up Argument.

Are there some stinkers in that group? Sure! Uzbekistan would struggle against, say, Brazil. But so would, like, ²⁄₃ of the teams already in this tournament. Brazil are very good.

But with this fake expanded 2018 World Cup we’d also get Italy and a fun Northern Ireland team, an extremely good Chile side, the USMNT (who, again, are fine), Ivory Coast, Paraguay, a tough Honduras group. I’m excited to watch that World Cup!

There are real concerns about expanding from 32 teams to 48 teams. But let’s take it easy with the doomsday tweets. Russia had an awesome game in their opener, the best they’ve played in months, in front of an excited home crowd. Saudi Arabia weren‘t physical enough to hang with them, and weren’t set up right tactically. But it’s not the end of the world, and adding 16 teams doesn’t mean there are going to be 16 teams out there getting throttled in every game.