Just as an aside, I wonder why South America has an 18 game qualifying campaign when they could just have two pools of five teams with the top two in each pool automatically qualifying. That way they'd only have to play 8 games. Seems weird.
Then they only play 8 competitive games outside of big tournaments in a 3-year period. Remember that they don't have to qualify for their continental championship the way teams have to in Europe, Africa, and Asia.
CONMEBOL (South American Confederation) used to qualify that way until a decade ago when they switched to the current format.
Until CONMEBOL teams started playing 18 qualifiers, the All Whites held the world record for playing the most World Cup qualifying games for so many years (15 matches in 1981-82).
Political jiggery-pokery means that the smaller South American countries Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana aren't members of CONMEBOL although they are geographically in South America.
Instead they have been lumped in with CONCACAF because the bigger South American countries can't be bothered playing them.
I read that those three countries (French Guiana is a French Overseas Territory and can field a team of its own as Tahiti, New Caledonia etc. do in Oceania) would prefer to be part of CONMEBOL with all the financial advantages etc. it would entail - but their bigger neighbours block them.
In my opinion, FIFA should mandate that countries play in their own Confederation's competitions - Australia should be a member of the Oceania Confederation. It shouldn't be determined by politics or a whim or what countries prefer .
Except for Israel who obviously can never play in their own Confederation (AFC) and have to play in UEFA because of hostility from their neighbours in the Middle East.