European teams need to lose heavily to hope to qualify for the World Cup.

San Marino, one of the world's smallest teams, is facing a strange scenario: they need a heavy defeat against Romania to keep their hopes of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup alive.

San Marino were forced to lose to Romania.

In the early morning of October 13, Romania's unexpected 1-0 defeat of Austria made the situation in Group H of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers in Europe unpredictable.

Romania (10 points) is only 3 points behind the second-placed team, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the rankings. If Romania wins the same opponent in the match on November 16, they will equalize the score with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This makes the goal difference between the two teams a decisive factor. Therefore, the match between Romania and San Marino on November 21 could be a turning point. According to AS , San Marino must lose heavily to Romania to help their opponents secure the second place in the group, thereby securing a ticket to the play-off round.

In the European qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, teams can qualify for the play-offs through two routes: second place in their group and performance in the UEFA Nations League. If Nations League group winners like Romania finish in the top two in their World Cup qualifying group (WCQ), they will qualify for the play-offs directly as runners-up, thereby giving the UNL play-off spot to lower-ranked teams like San Marino.

Current situation of Group H.

If Romania beat Bosnia & Herzegovina to finish second in World Cup qualifying Group H (based on points or goal difference), they will take the play-off spot as runners-up. This means that Romania's UNL play-off spot will go to San Marino, who top their Nations League group.

This leads to an unusual situation: San Marino, Romania’s opponents in the final match, would benefit from a heavy loss to Romania. A loss by a large margin would help Romania improve their goal difference, thereby increasing their chances of finishing second in Group H, and indirectly opening the door for San Marino to qualify for the 2026 World Cup play-offs via the UNL route.

The situation has sparked criticism of UEFA's current competition format. A format that encourages a team to deliberately lose in order to achieve a greater objective is clearly unreasonable and goes against the spirit of fair play in football.

Source: https://znews.vn/doi-chau-au-can-thua-dam-de-mong-du-world-cup-post1593217.html