World Cup 86

World Cup 86 is an international football tournament being held in Drawkland and Newmanistan. Free Republics, the defending World Cup winners, did not participate due to a nuclear incident.

Host selection
The selection process was notable for the variety of competition formats and schedules proposed by bidders, following widespread discussions among football associations about the need to examine a range of options to deal with fixture congestion. This came as a reaction to the length of the World Cup 85 qualifiers, which had the longest qualifying period involving the most matches in the World Cup's history. The vote required three rounds to obtain a majority for the winning bid, held according to a ranked-ballot voting system. Eliminated options' votes were reallocated among the other candidates according to voter preferences specified on the ballot.

Four bids were submitted to host the tournament. Krytenia submitted two bids, one with Delaclava and another with Legalese. A Vilitan plan bid was also proposed, with Taeshan and Eastfield Lodge as primary hosts and Tequilo and Reçueçn as assistants. After several rounds of instant-runoff voting, Newmanistan and Drawkland were selected as hosts. Their bid featured double-matchday scorination and a slight decaying penalty for late rosters.

Qualification
The 180 teams entering the qualifying phase were drawn into 18 seeded groups of ten. Group winners and the six best second-place teams qualified directly for the finals, while the remaining 12 second-place teams advanced to qualification playoffs. Playoffs were contested as a home-and-away series, with winner decided by aggregate score, goals scored as the away team, and if tied after that, extra time and penalties. Team 1 played the first leg at home.


 * Qualified automatically
 * Qualified through playoffs
 * Cup of Harmony 78

Draw
Teams were allocated to four pots on the basis of their KPB world ranking at the end of qualification. As hosts, Drawkland and Newmanistan were placed in pot one.

Bracket

 * Due to differences in national calendars, all dates are OOC unless otherwise noted.