The 2018 FIFA World Cup won't be played for quite some time, but qualifying will begin this week for the CONMEBOL confederation. South America has some of the best national teams in the world, and you can bet this will be an extremely competitive tournament from start to finish.

The Teams

A total of 10 CONMEBOL teams from Latin America will be competing in this event. Those national teams include Argentina, Chile, Peru, Columbia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay and Bolivia. The 2014 FIFA World Cup featured six CONMEBOL teams: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay.

Argentina is the No. 1 ranked team in the world according to the FIFA rankings. Argentina lost to Germany in the 2014 FIFA World Cup and then again in the finals of the 2015 Copa America. Chile won the Copa America this year over Argentina. The all-time great rivalry of Brazil and Argentina is always a must watch, but Colombia vs. Brazil may just be the best rivalry in South America at the moment.

Schedule Format

Every team will eventually play every other team in this tournament. The standard three point win system will ensue as well. The top four teams will automatically qualify to play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Match Day 1 will take place on Thursday, Oct. 8. There will be a total of 18 match days to ensure that all 10 nations face off against one another. The second match day will be Tuesday, Oct. 13. Match day three will be not be until November. Each and every match day will have five games between the 10 national teams.

Match day one consist of:

Bolivia vs. Uruguay

Columbia vs. Peru

Venezuela vs. Paraguay

Chile vs. Brazil

Argentina vs. Ecuador

Missing Players

The beginning of this tournament will be without a lot of familiar faces. The most obvious one of course being Lionel Messi. Messi is out with a knee injury, and he will in fact miss the first two games for Argentina. Neymar will also be out but for a different reason. The young Brazilian superstar will miss the first two games against Chile and Venezuela because of his discipline at the Copa America when he headbutted a Colombian player.

Speaking of Barcelona players, Luis Suarez is also serving a suspension, for Uruguay. Suarez was suspended for nine international games because of his biting incident at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Suarez has already sat out five of the games and he will miss four more. Suarez will miss games against Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile.

Another superstar who will miss some time is James Rodriguez. It has been confirmed that the 24-year-old middle fielder will not be playing for the next three weeks. Rodriguez is dealing with a thigh injury, and he will not be playing for Real Madrid either.

On the positive side, Claudio Bravo has returned from his calf injury. He is scheduled to start in goal for Chile on Thursday against Brazil.

Follow Damon Salvadore on Twitter @DamonSalvadore1