World Cup

The NationStates World Cup is the multiverse's longest-running recurring sporting event, dating back to the first half of 2003. Nations from around the NS world at all sorts of different technology levels play football (also known as 'soccer' or 'Association football') for the ultimate glory of becoming World Champions. The competition is governed and organized by the World Cup Committee (WCC), which is formed by the participating football associations.

Each World Cup cycle consists of three related tournaments: the World Cup itself, the Baptism of Fire held prior to the beginning of World Cup qualification for first-time entrants, and the Cup of Harmony to which nations not qualifying for the World Cup finals may enter by invitation. Matches in these WCC-sanctioned tournaments count towards a nation's KPB ranking.

Qualifying
Each World Cup since World Cup 3 has begun with a qualifying stage. Historically, anywhere from approximately fifty to two hundred nations enter qualifying in any given cycle. These nations are then seeded based on their KPB rank and then divided into qualifying groups of (usually) equal size. All teams in a qualifying group play each other twice, once at home, once away; this seeded double-round-robin format was first used in World Cup 7 and has been used for all World Cup qualifiers since.

After all matches have been played, thirty qualifiers are determined based on placement in their groups. The first criterion for placement is the number of points earned (three for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss). Each host committee determines further tiebreakers, usually goal difference (the number of goals conceded subtracted from the number of goals scored) or head-to-head results between the tied teams. In almost all situations, this is enough to resolve any tie. In some cases, playoffs are scheduled as part of the qualifying phase; although this is required when the number of groups is not a factor of 30, that being the number of teams that qualify, some World Cups with fifteen qualifying groups - such as the 80th, 91st and 92nd World Cups - have required the second- and third-placed teams in each group to enter playoffs. World Cup 54 saw the use of a two-staged qualifying phase, where 30 "zonal" groups fed into 10 "interzonal" groups of 6, but this format is not common.

World Cup
The thirty qualifiers in addition to the two host nations advance to play in the World Cup proper. (Although all World Cups have consisted of 32 teams as of World Cup 92, a constitutional amendment was passed prior to the competition's 91st running to clarify that "[i]t will always consist of at least 32 teams.") The first round (or the group stage, as it is also known) is made up of eight groups of four nations. Routinely, four of these groups play in one host nation, while the other four groups compete in the second. Each nation in a group plays each other nation in that group once. The top two nations in each group advance to the second round.

Again, tiebreakers may be used here; in exceptional cases, there may be a playoff match, as in World Cup 12, when Timway beat Liverpool England 2-1, or drawing of lots, as in World Cup 39 where all four teams in one group finished with an identical record. In recent cycles, an in-character coin-toss - or, in out-of-character terms, a match between the deadlocked teams scorinated using only their respective roleplay bonuses - has increasingly gained favour among hosts; the most recent example of this was at World Cup 91, where Farfadillis topped Group E at the expense of Pasarga after winning the coin-toss.

Beginning with the second round (also known as the round of sixteen), a single-elimination format is used. The exception to this is in the semifinals, as the two losing nations in the semifinals still move on to face off in the third-place playoff.

Scorination
Results are determined by using a scorinator of some sort. Excel spreadsheets were historically the most common method, and used for ten of the first twelve World Cups. The World Cup 13 co-host Rejistania created a scorinator in Java, then only known as wc13.java; this would form the basis of Leagion, which would be used for a number of subsequent World Cups. Around the same time, Bedistan was developing another scorinator, NSFootySim, which used XML as its input language; unlike Leagion, this scorinator featured a graphical user interface, and as such became more popular. Today, the most common scorinator for the World Cup is xkoranate, which supports multiple formulae for association football scorination, such as SQIS and Footba11er as well as NSFS.

The primary influence on the results is the rank of each nation, though roleplay bonus and sheer randomness can also have moderate effects. The exact influence of each depends on the formula used and the extent to which hosts wish to emphasise it, and hence varies between World Cups.

History
Upon its institution by Ariddia, there was no qualifying stage and no ranking system, in the World Cup, and match results were determined merely by rolls of the dice. Minor alterations were made to the dice-rolling formula for the second World Cup in The Holy Empire. Total n Utter Insanity initiated the move away from dice in World Cup 3, and match results were now generated by Excel spreadsheets with, moreover, a qualifying stage appended to the system. This supplementation enabled more nations to participate at any given time, though to this day only thirty-two attain entrance to the World Cup proper. After qualifiers were introduced, the host(s) of the Cup, in addition to the few highest-ranked nations, automatically participated without need of qualification. Beginning in World Cup 7, this too was modified, and thus only the inherent qualification of the host nation(s) prevailed.

In World Cup 9, the roleplay bonus was introduced. The KPB ranking system was introduced for World Cup 12, and has remained in use since.

World Cup Committee
The World Cup Committee (WCC) governs the creation of the World Cup tournament and oversees its binding laws. The committee serves four key roles, namely to: Nations gain admission to the WCC if they have signed up for, and submitted a full roster to, two consecutive World Cups before the end of those World Cups' group stages. This does not guarantee permanent admission, and nations must continue to follow this process for each Cup.
 * elect World Cup host nations,
 * elect Cup of Harmony host nations,
 * nominate and elect WCC presidents, and
 * propose and vote on amendments to the WCC Constitution.

The World Cup Committee president is elected after every third Cup by WCC members and serves for a three-Cup cycle. The president calls for nominations and votes for the hosts of all three WCC tournaments and constitutional amendment votes. The nation that is chosen to serve in this position generally is a long-standing member of the international community and has significant experience as a host and participant.

Executive World Cup Committee
The Executive World Cup Committee (EWCC) is made up of representatives from all existing nations that have hosted a World Cup. These nations are well-acquainted with the ins and outs of a World Cup cycle, and thus provide most of the discussion and ideas for World Cup reform. The committee role is to elect hosts for the Baptism of Fire. The Baptism of Fire tournament is critical to instructing and retaining new participants, which requires capable, trusted hosts; this suits EWCC members' extra expertise and experience over WCC members.

Results

 * See also: World Cup finals

Records
''These facts may not necessarily be up to date by the time you read this. Please refer to NSWC Signups' factbook on World Cup Facts and Records.''

By defeating Liverpool England in the Semi-Final of World Cup 17, Dance 2 Revolution became the first post-KPB team (a nation that has only competed in the World Cup since the official use of KPB ranks began in World Cup 12) to make the final. Dance 2 Revolution became the first post-KPB team to finish in the top 3 in two separate cups by beating Total n Utter Insanity in the World Cup 19 3rd-Placing Match. Dance 2 Revolution's World Cup 19 spotlight was quickly stolen by Crystilakere, who went down in history as the first post-KPB nation to unseat the veterans and win the World Cup.

Starblaydia, Valanora, and Vilita currently hold the record for most World Cups won (five). The Holy Empire holds the record for most appearances in the final with nine. Additionally, Capitalizt SLANI claims to inherit Bedistan’s records (after the destruction of Bedistan's football association but before the nation ceased to exist, Bedistani footballers played for Capitalizt SLANI), but this is not generally recognized. Audioslavia currently hold the record for most losses in the final match, with five (WC12, WC19, WC20, WC29, and WC67); the first four of these came before their first victory, in WC63. Thirty nations have made an appearance in the final more than once; of those, five have lost on each occasion.

The World Cup 22 final will go down in history as one of the most unexpected finals ever, with both nations outside the top 10 in rankings prior to the finals. It has been suggested that the winning scoreline of 4-0 to Sarzonia is the biggest ever in a World Cup final.

Rejistania's victory in the final of WC23 ended a run of four consecutive victories for sides from the Atlantian Oceania region (Crystilakere - WC19, Vilita - WC20, Bedistan - WC21, Sarzonia, WC22), though AO was back on top again in World Cup 25 with Starblaydia. There had not been a Final without an AO nation appearing in it since World Cup 18 until WC31, when Squornshelous & New Montreal States competed in the final. This also broke a 6 World Cup winning streak for Atlantian Oceania.

The record for the most goals in a World Cup match (qualifying or finals) is 15, in Bedistan's 8-7 defeat of Vilita in World Cup 21; this was tied in the qualifying stages of World Cup 55, when Qlumez defeated Syracusse 10-5. The record winning margin in a World Cup match is 14, in Bears Armed' 14-0 defeat of Peisandros in World Cup 56 qualification. More information on these games is available here.

The final top-three finishing nations in World Cup 27 were also the three previous Cup Winners: Bedistan (World Cup 26 champions), Liverpool England (World Cup 24 champions) and Starblaydia (World Cup 25 champions). These were, coincidentally, also the top three finishers in World Cup 28 and World Cup 30. None of these teams, however, got past the quarter-finals at World Cup 29.

World rankings
Originally, the NSWC rankings were determined purely on finishing position in the previous Cup. The defending champions would be ranked first, the team with the best record in qualifying that failed to qualify would be 33rd, etc. During World Cup 9, the WCC determined that a new ranking system was needed, but it took a while to come to a consensus. World Cup 11 used the RPR system. The majority of the World Cup community disliked that approach, mainly because Total n Utter Insanity failed to explain it and because its implementation tended to have discouraging effects for new nations. Starting with World Cup 12, the KPB ranking system developed by Kaze Progressa with modifications from Bedistan was officially incorporated. KPB ranking takes into account the past three World Cups and the associated tournaments Cup of Harmony and Baptism of Fire.

The Empire of Vilita became the first to control two nations inside the top 10 of the KPB rankings at the conclusion of World Cup 19. The Emirate of Turori, a colony of Vilita, lost in the quarterfinals of World Cup 19 to eventual runners-up Audioslavia, but their performance as first time hosts earned them a place in the top 10 for the first time, joining their rulers, Vilita. After Vilita won World Cup 20 and Turori made the quarterfinals, the two remained in the top 10 for their third and second consecutive cups respectively, eventually doing one better as both nations found themselves ranked in the top 5, at 2nd and 4th in the list. Other times a nation and their puppet have both been in the top ten include Valanora and Demot, Valanora and Pasarga, and The Archregimancy and The Holy Empire.