( CNN ) -- They are football 's royalty , the marquee players whose almost super human ability on the ball wins cups and championships ; their faces adorn billboards and magazine covers from China to Colombia . Lionel Messi could miss out on the 2010 World Cup if his team Argentina fail to improve . But , amazingly , the likes of Lionel Messi , Cristiano Ronaldo and Thierry Henry may all be absent from the World Cup finals in South Africa . Qualification for next year 's tournament has thrown up a host of surprise results with a number of top teams , including Argentina , Portugal , France and Egypt all in serious danger of missing the tournament . The 2010 World Cup missing stars ? » . The highest profile strugglers are Diego Maradona 's Argentina , who were defeated by Paraguay in the last round of qualifiers and remain outside of the automatic promotion places in their group . Would you miss Argentina at the World Cup finals ? Portugal , featuring World Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo , are playing catch up to Sweden and Denmark in their group and may not even make the playoffs . Add fellow-strugglers France to the mix and , suddenly , Africa 's first World Cup could be remembered more for the teams that did n't make it , rather than for those that did . But would the failure of football 's heavyweights to qualify for the World Cup necessarily be as apocalyptic as many have suggested ? Does it actually open the door for less established football nations to write their own sporting histories ? When England failed to qualify for the 1974 World Cup , just eight years after lifting the Jules Rimet trophy , it was a relatively unknown Polish side that benefited . The Poles went on to take the tournament by storm , losing the semifinal to eventual winners West Germany 1-0 . `` The Polish team was just as perfectly structured as our team in 1972 , '' admitted Paul Breitner , the German defender who scored the opening goal in the final against the Netherlands , to FIFA.com . Other teams have also benefited from the profligacy of more established footballing nations . Portugal were pipped to the 1982 World Cup in Spain by Northern Ireland , then the smallest national association to ever qualify for the finals . The team went onto to set the tournament alight , disposing of the hosts en route to the quarterfinals . And the great Bulgarian trio of Hristo Stoichkov , Yordan Letchkov and Trifon Ivanov would never have shone on the world stage at USA 94 if their team had not qualified at the expense of a talented France side containing the likes of Eric Cantona , Jean-Pierre Papin and David Ginola . This year a host of talented minnows like Gabon , Bosnia and Bahrain are all hoping to take advantage and make it to their first-ever finals . Whilst the likes of Argentina take qualification for granted , an appearance at the World Cup for a fledgling nation can have a dramatic social , as well as sporting , effect as qualification by Cameroon , Iran and South Africa has proved in the past . For other teams coasting towards South Africa , though , the failure of the bigger teams brings unexpected benefits . `` It 's good for England , '' explained England captain John Terry before his team 's qualifier against Croatia tonight . `` When we did n't qualify , I went back to Chelsea and the attitude of the foreign players was : 'We have a better chance of winning the World Cup . ' First and foremost , we think about ourselves . If we go there without some big teams in the competition , then it 's even better . '' What do you think ? Would the World Cup really miss Argentina , Portugal or France ? Or would a new generation of stars step in to fill the void ?
A host of top teams are in danger of missing out on the 2010 World Cup Final . Argentina , Portugal and Brazil are all struggling to reach South Africa . The likes of Lionel Messi , Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Ribery all miss out . Would you miss teams like Argentina being at the World Cup ? Sound Off .