World Cup 71

World Cup 71 was an international football tournament contested by ___ national teams.

The finals involved 32 teams, of which 30 came through a qualifying competition, while the host nations – Felix and Yttribia qualified automatically. Of the 32, __ had also appeared in the finals of World Cup 70, with __ nations making their first appearances at the World Cup finals in this edition.

64 matches were played in __ venues across __ cities in the host nations. Host nations Felix and Yttribia were eliminated in the ____ and ____ respectively. Osarius, the defending champions, once again progressed to the final, where they played Pasarga. Osarius won the match 4–3 to claim their second World Cup.

Host selection
As usual, the World Cup Committee cast their votes to select the hosts of all three of the cycle's WCC-affiliated tournaments. The bid from Felix and Yttribia won the right to host World Cup 71, beating two other joint bids from Valanora and The Sarian, and Royal Kingdom of Quebec and the Holy Republican Empire.

The voting results were:

Qualification
Of the 32 nations qualified to play at the World Cup 71 finals, __ countries competed at the previous tournament finals.

Notable teams that failed to qualify included: Starblaydia, Bears Armed, San José Guayabal.

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the KPB Rankings at the time of the tournament.

Atlantian Oceania (10)
 * (1)
 * (4)
 * (7)
 * (9)
 * 🇰🇷 south korea (11)
 * 🇹🇷 turkey (15)
 * (16)
 * (19)
 * (20)
 * (24)

Rushmore (5)
 * (2)
 * (5)
 * (15)
 * (23)
 * (39)

Esportiva (11)
 * (host)
 * (host)
 * (10)
 * (12)
 * (17)
 * (27)
 * (28)
 * (35)
 * (38)
 * (45)
 * (46)

Other regions (6)
 * (3)
 * (22)
 * (25)
 * (26)
 * (33)
 * (41)

Draw
For the draw, the teams were allocated to four pots based on the KPB Rankings at the end of qualifying. Pot one contained the hosts Felix and Yttribia alongside the six highest ranked teams. Pot two contained the next best eight teams, and so on for pots three and four.

Squads
During qualifying, nations were not restricted in the number of players they could use. Prior to the start of the finals, however, qualifying teams had to name a squad of twenty-three &ndash with three of the squad being goalkeepers – from whom all subsequent matchday selections would be made.

Group stage
Competing countries were divided into eight groups of four teams (groups A to H). Teams in each group played one another in a round-robin, with the top two teams advancing to the knockout stage. __ Atlantian Oceanian teams, __ Rushmori teams, and __ Esportivan teams progressed to the knockout stage, together with ___.

Tiebreakers
The ranking of teams in the group stage was determined as follows:


 * 1) Points obtained in all group matches;
 * 2) Points obtained in the matches played between the teams in question;
 * 3) Goal difference in the matches played between the teams in question;
 * 4) Goal difference in all group matches;
 * 5) Number of goals scored in all group matches;

Should the above not settle the tie, and the tie must be settled in order to determine advancement in the tournament, a tiebreaker match would be held at a neutral venue.

Knockout stage
In the knockout stages, if a match was level at the end of normal playing time, extra time was played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners.

Below is the bracket for the knockout round of the tournament, teams in bold denote match winners.