12 Longest Absences From The World Cup

Last Appearance: 1938

It's quite shocking to realise that of the world's ten most populous countries, only half can field a competitive international football side - the United States (3rd), Brazil (6th), Nigeria (7th), Russia (9th) and Japan (10th).

In three of the others, India (2nd), Pakistan (5th) and Bangladesh (8th), cricket is king at the expense of all other sports. It's difficult to pin down exactly why China (1st) and Indonesia (4th) struggle so much, however, particularly given that football is massively popular in both in terms of participation and viewership.

Both have actually made it to a World Cup, with China having made their debut relatively recently in 2002 (where they lost all three of their games and went out in the group stage without scoring a single goal). Indonesia's appearance came all the way back in just the third edition of the tournament in 1938, where much like the Cubans they qualified by default after Japan, the only other Asian team that had entered qualification, withdrew.

There the Indonesian side (then known as the Dutch East Indies as they were still a colony of the Netherlands rather than an independent nation at the time) suffered a 6-0 defeat to Hungary and were immediately knocked out, the 1938 tournament being a single elimination bracket without a group stage. As a result they have the unwelcome distinction of having played the least World Cup matches (amongst those seventy nine countries that have qualified) of all time.