But after leading American Samoa to its first victory and narrowly missing out on advancement to the next round of the 2014 Word Cup qualification, Rongen had an epiphany.

“I’ve become a romantic — I’m all for it,” he said of expansion. Still, the Oceania confederation, of which American Samoa is a member, currently does not have an automatic place in the World Cup; it is guaranteed only a playoff spot. In 2014, that went to New Zealand, but it was trounced by Mexico in an intercontinental playoff, leaving Oceania unrepresented in Brazil.

“The game is the people’s game, the world’s game,” Rongen said. “Smaller countries, they deserve an opportunity to belong, or maybe not to belong. There will be a few games we might need a mercy rule. That is the beauty of the game.”

An expanded World Cup is likely to have the biggest impact in Asia. It is the world’s most populous continent, with 47 member associations and two of the biggest underdeveloped soccer markets in the world, China and India, which have a combined population of over two billion people. China has qualified for the World Cup finals once, in 2002; India, despite recent multimillion-dollar investments in a nascent domestic league, has never taken part.

Asia currently has only four guaranteed World Cup berths, plus an intercontinental playoff spot.

“You can look at a 32-team tournament and say it is not inclusive,” Stephen Constantine, the coach of India’s national team, said. “It is maybe overdue in terms of expansion.”