The World Championships groups went up today, and we ended up in an interesting spot. Before looking at the groups specifically, I will first go over the format for this tournament.
There are 2 groups of 6 teams to start out, and each team plays every other team in their group once (with all games being played in Lieutva). After this opening round, the top 4 teams in each group move on, and the bottom two teams are cut (and face a longgg stretch of nothing but scrimmages). The surviving 8 teams merge into a new group, and records carry over, but only for the games against the other 3 survivors from your group (so the two games played against the eliminated teams get dropped from the standings). Each team plays a single game against each other team that advanced from the other group (still in Lieutva), resulting in an overall record that includes 7 games total. The top 4 teams, at this point, are then seeded into a single elimination playoff bracket (and the bottom 4 teams are eliminated).
Next up, the actual groups! (with world rankings listed)
Pool A
- Canada, 12 (America runner up)
- China, 4 (Asia winner)
- Deutschland, 6 (Europe winner)
- Latvija, 8 (repechage)
- Lieutva, 9 (repechage)
- Nigeria, 71 (Africa runner up)
Pool B
- Chile, 10 (repechage)
- Italia, 3 (repechage)
- Misr, 50 (Africa winner)
- Phillipines, 7 (Asia runner up)
- Turkiye, 11 (Europe runner up)
- United States, 5 (America winner)
The opening match for us is against Nigeria, at 10:30 AM EST, on Monday, July 26. This will be the first game ever played by a Canadian team in the U21 World Championships, and hopefully we can start off strong. :)
Last edited by The Mogul at 7/20/2010 3:12:07 PM