Dunga and Basile - what have you two done?

The coaches are to blame for sure but I think the qualification system also has a lot to with the uninspired performances of Argentina and Brasil. There are simply way too many games in their group, they can lose quite a few of them and still qualify. So I reckon a lot of the players do not bother to give their best in every game, thinking that due to being so much better than the other teams on paper they will still qualify eventually.

There are 18 games, but they are more difficult games. You never want to leave to the later stages. Thats why this is the toughest WC qualifying region.

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You might not want to, but you can afford to leave to the latest stages which would be harder to do if you had less games to play. And exactly having more competition - i.e. eveyone can lose points, actually helps Brazil and Argentina lose motivation and not give their best all the time - they are probably certain that other contenders will lose points at some, too. How exactly woudl splitting the teams into two groups would change the toughness of qualifying anyweay, considering the same teams will play? It will merely make it more diffcult to recover after a bad start and it might motivate the stars more. Best motivation would of course be, not qualifying but I don't see this happening with the 18 games system.

The Turks are nowhere near to Spain qualitywise. Same about all the other groups. One can only "choke" not to qualify.

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But this even more true for the vast gulf in quality (on paper, mind you) between Argentina, Brazil and everyone else in South America/ You cannot really believe that the difference in quality (on paper) between Germany and Russia, England and Croatia, Sweden and Portugal is bigger than that of Brazil and Paraguay?