Asia was better than Concacaf. Honduras was just cannon fodder. They weren't competitive at all. Honestly, take out that second half against Portugal and North Korea were a much better side, competed with Brazil and had the Portuguese under huge pressure in the first half of that match. And Australia weren't that far off making the second round. Concacaf is just a joke confederation. 3.5 spots and only two teams that can have any illusions of being competitive in the World Cup.
Africa, well, overall I think there are a more competitive teams than Asia, but the top level teams in Asia are developing faster, and I'm not just talking about South Korea, Japan and Australia, but some of the middle east sides as well. South Korea has very good youth teams, Japan's side was mostly made of J-League players, a league which is steadily growing in quality, and countries like Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia etc are investing more and more money in the sport.
I think this world cup marked the beginning of an era where Asian competitors will be qualifying from their first round groups with regularity. By 2022 there will be some pretty competitive Asian nations going around, so the World Cup really ought to return to the region. The Qatari bid, despite the great stadiums, and the positive assessments by FIFA is really quite ridiculous, Japan and Korea have had it too recently, so despite our rather bumbling effort Australia, as far as I'm concerned we are the only realistic option for 2022. Sure the USA offers a lot of economic opportunities. But Asia, if it isn't now, will be by then the game's biggest market. It can't be ignored.
Just btw, sure other South American sides like Colombia and Ecuador would also be competitive at this World Cup. But we've already got 50% of the region's teams here. So unfortunately for them, they can't have much more.
