Eight of the 10 most populous countries are not in the World Cup

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Without a team in the World Cup, Bangladeshi fans have "adopted" other nations such as Argentina By Fernando Duarte BBC World Service Published 8 minutes ago There was mayhem at the packed gathering of fans on 17 June, when Argentina star Lionel Messi scored his first 2026 Fifa World Cup goal by coolly slotting the ball past the Algerian goalkeeper. But not a single Argentine was in the crowd: the fans jumping around - many of them wearing the famous albiceleste (white and sky blue) shirt - were locals in one of the many open-air watch parties in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. Cities in India and Indonesia have also hosted similarly passionate street gatherings. Messi and his countrymen have been adopted by these fans, in part because their own nations have repeatedly failed to qualify for the World Cup. Of the world's 10 most populous countries, only two have made it to the current tournament (the United States and Brazil). Two others (Russia and Nigeria) have appeared at several previous tournaments. China and Indonesia have only once taken part in the most popular sporting event on the planet. India (the world's most populous nation), Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Pakistan have so far only dreamt of joining the party - although India technically qualified for the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, but withdrew less than a month before the tournament started. "It is simply unacceptable that a country with millions of football fans should lag so far behind in football," renowned Bangladeshi actor, writer and football fan Audite Karim tells the BBC. So why is it that population size is such a poor guide to footballing success? Does size really matter? In theory, the larger the population of a given country, the more potential athletes there are to recruit. Seven out of the eight nations to ever win the World Cup (Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) have relatively large populations. The only exception is Uruguay - but more on them later... However, population size is only one of a number of important factors, explains British academic and economist Stefan Szymanski. "Football is very similar to how national economies work. For them to thrive, you need people. But then you also need capital and infrastructure," says Szymanski, who is the co-author of Soccernomics, a best-selling book which analyses data to examine sporting success and failure. "In football, that means training facilities and the ability to find talent." Szymanski observes that the vast majority of successful footballing nations share another common denominator: wealth. In Soccernomics, Szymanski and co-author Simon Kuper found that countries typically need "a minimum annual average income per capita of $15,000 to win anything". But Brazil and Argentina, whose average income per capita is well below this threshold, have won eight World Cup titles combined. That, according to the British economist, shows the importance of the third