So much of the beauty of sport was encapsulated in Scotland’s almost impossibly dramatic victory over Denmark at Hampden Park on Tuesday night.
It was there in the emotion of the evening and the quality of the goals and the joyous release of the two brilliant late goals that won the game for Steve Clarke’s side and helped them finish top of their group.
And it was there in the sheer moment of the occasion: for the first time in 28 years, Scotland were going to the biggest football party on the planet. They were going to be part of the Big Show.
There were heart-warming scenes in Kingston, Jamaica, too where the home side were held to a draw by the tiny Caribbean nation of Curacao, which became the smallest country ever to qualify for World Cup.
And on the same evening, Haiti, a nation torn apart by a civil war so murderous that the team cannot play home games in their own country, qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1974.
There is magic in all these outcomes but as football prepares for a tournament next summer that has increased its number of participants by 50% to 48 teams for the first time in its history, there are causes for disquiet, too.
Scotland qualified for the World Cup in dramatic fashion with a 4-2 triumph over Denmark
Fans have every right to bask in the glorious achievement – but Scotland’s qualification is a worrying sign that we are losing the jeopardy that makes World Cup qualifying so gripping
Hours after Scotland qualified, tiny island nation Curacao sealed their spot at the World Cup
A quick disclaimer: I am not talking about Scotland’s qualification here. They finished top of their group, ahead of a team like Denmark that has a decent European pedigree. But there is a nagging sense that qualifying has become too easy.
Let’s face it, it is harder to miss out than it is to qualify, or at least to make the play-offs. There is precious little jeopardy any more. There is such a big safety net for the giants of Europe and South America that you have to stink the place out to miss the party.
For too many teams, the entire qualifying tournament is a non-event. It was that way for England. Sure, Thomas Tuchel and his team deserve a lot of credit for qualifying with such crushing dominance, winning every game.
But the opposition was so weak that it has left us wondering quite how good England are and whether Tuchel and his side will get a rude awakening once the real business of the tournament starts.
Put it this way, the debate over Jude Bellingham might not have got this far had England had tougher opponents to face and less latitude to leave a player of his quality on the sidelines.
Tuchel handled that situation well but, in a way, Bellingham was a victim of the easy route to the USA, Mexico and Canada. Tuchel could afford to play hard-ball with him. Bellingham will still be critical to England’s hopes when the side starts playing decent opposition.
I’d love Wales, for instance, to get to the tournament, too. Good luck to every nation that punches above its weight, as Craig Bellamy’s team is doing. But there are still too many safety nets.
The expansion of the play-offs to include a pot of teams that have qualified through their Nations League performance feels excessive. It is another indication of a lack of jeopardy. And that is before we even get to the bloated tournament itself.
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Curacao, who are only 15 years old as a country, will become by far the smallest team ever to compete at the tournament after holding Jamaica to a 0-0 draw in Kingston on Tuesday night
Fans of Haiti (left) and Panama (right) celebrate qualifying for the World Cup next summer
Jude Bellingham was a victim of England’s easy route to next summer’s World Cup
That it is taking place across three nations is one thing. That it is lasting seven days longer than any previous World Cup, at a time when there is increasing concern about the demands placed on elite footballers and the injuries their load is causing, is another retrograde step.
But the 48-team tournament will also lead to a severe dilution of the quality of matches, particularly in the group stages.
The expansion was a political ruse by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to help facilitate his re-election and, from that point of view, it was a stunning success.
But spectators will pay the price for it. Again, it will be harder not to qualify for the Round of 32 than it will be to be knocked out. Some of the teams are there for padding. They will be there as a political favour.
It means there is a real danger that, for all the emotion thrown up by this final round of qualifying ties and the tension that will come with the play-offs next March, the opening two weeks of the World Cup will be a turgid succession of mismatches.
The romance of the presence of smaller teams in the competition will dissipate quickly if there are too many one-sided games and embarrassing trouncings and that is the prospect that is quickly coming into focus.
Some, perhaps, will discount that as the arrogance of the European elite. They will counter that the World Cup should be open to all but that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the tournament.
World Cup qualifying should be open to all, of course. And yes, it would be lovely if every single nation on earth got to experience the joy of the jamboree that is the greatest football event in the calendar.
World football’s FIFA, governed by president Gianni Infantino (above), are staging football’s first ever 48-team World Cup next summer in the United States, Canada and Mexico
Troy Parrott rescued the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup hopes with a dramatic stoppage time winner against Hungary – with his team now set for a decisive UEFA playoff in March
The Tartan Army will be making their first appearance at a World Cup for 27 years in June
But the whole point of the World Cup is that it is supposed to be a great achievement just to get there. And if you are good enough to get there, you should be good enough to trouble anyone, just as Northern Ireland did, for instance, at the 1982 World Cup.
That will not be the case next summer. Too many matches will feature giants of the game peering into a barrel and shooting fish in it. That feels less like inclusion and opportunity and more like gesture politics practised by a power-hungry president who is killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
