In-goal said:just a whole lot of WC qualifing that year to find the best 12 nations on Earth.
If there is, that would be a mistake. The World Cup would be much better served, not by necessarily having the best nations, but by being globally representative.
For example, there should be a team from the Americas (in all likelihood the USA) even though the best team from the Americas would not be in the top 12 teams in the world. ditto for a team from Eastern Europe.
This would benefit international RL much more than having just the 12 best teams, when fully half of them would be from Australasia.