World Cup 2010, March Madness Style

March 15th, 2010 | by: Daryl |

angle-bracket American sports fans are about to go crazy with March Madness. For those unfamiliar, it’s a 64 team NCAA college basketball knockout tournament (or 65 teams if you count tomorrow’s play-in game). The teams are seeded and then organized into a bracket where the high seeds open by playing the low seeds and everything rolls from there. Obviously not everyone’s happy with their seed, and there’s always plenty of complaining once the bracket is released.

The World Cup isn’t quite organized like this, but March Madness seems like a perfect excuse to pretend it was. So I’ve ranked all the qualified World Cup teams #1 to #32, based on the March 3rd, 2010 FIFA World Ranking. Below you’ll find those seedings, followed by what the World Cup 2010 March Madness style bracket would look like.

#1 Spain
#2 Brazil
#3 Netherlands
#4 Italy
#5 Germany
#6 Portugal
#7 France
#8 England
#9 Argentina
#10 Greece
#11 Serbia
#12 Chile
#13 Mexico
#14 Switzerland
#15 USA
#16 Uruguay
#17 Cameroon
#18 Nigeria
#19 Cote d’Ivoire
#20 Australia
#21 Slovenia
#22 Ghana
#23 Paraguay
#24 Slovakia
#25 Algeria
#26 Denmark
#27 Honduras
#28 Japan
#29 South Korea
#30 New Zealand
#31 South Africa
#32 North Korea

FIRST ATTEMPT AT WORLD CUP 2010 BRACKET:
WC 2010 BRACKET MARCH MADNESS STYLE RESIZED

Created using ExcelTemplates

Tough draw for hosts South Africa, who face #2 seed Brazil in the opening round. Don’t fancy North Korea’s chances vs Spain either. A victory for the #32 seed there would be quite the upset. Some other intriguing first round games like Australia vs Mexico, USA vs Nigeria and Ghana vs Serbia too, but – just like in the real World Cup – the big games will come in the second round. If I’m reading that bracket correctly then we could be seeing England vs Germany, Brazil vs USA and France vs Portugal in “Sweet 16″.

Which reminds me. One caveat for this World Cup 2010 March Madness bracket: I think I’d want to change some of the names as we progress through the knockouts. I’m thinking we ditch “Final Four” in favour of something like “Awesome Foursome”.

SECOND ATTEMPT AT WORLD CUP 2010 BRACKET:
Commenter Brad spotted that something wasn’t quite right with our bracket, because the way it played out didn’t match the NCAA format from the second round onwards. He left three (in his own words “somewhat strident”) comments on the matter, and turns out he was correct. So, for Brad, and for everyone else out there that would prefer we did this properly, here’s the new World Cup 2010 March Madness style bracket:

bracket 2

In this version, if the top seeds all win in the first round, then the seeds for the second round all add up to 17. Which basically means the top teams are more evenly distributed. The new bracket throws up some interesting possibilities, like #8 England vs #9 Argentina and #1 Brazil vs #15 USA in the second round.

How do you see this new bracket playing out?

- For those interested in actual World Cup bracketology, we have World Cup 2010 wall charts available for download here.

Tags: bracketlogy, March Madness, NCAA, World Cup 2010, World Football

World Cup Soccer – South Africa 2010 RSS Feed

Bola

Glad that you shared this! It's some pretty great info, I know some people that will really enjoy this.
Thank you and My best regards!
Bola
Daryl

Brad,

No worries, and if you look above you'll see I'v reworked the bracket into a proper NCAA format.
Brad

I'm sorry if my comments here come off as strident. I enjoy the site and your accent, Daryl. It just makes me cringe to look at this thing. Surely, you understand.

Warm regards,
Brad
Brad

The bracket is DEFINITELY wrong. If you advance the top seeds all the way it should look like this:

Round of 16:

1-16, 8-9, 4-13, 5-12, 2-15, 7-10, 3-14, 6-11

Quarterfinals:

1-8, 4-5, 2-7, 3-6

Semifinals

1-4, 2-3

Finals

1-2

Notice how each time the highest seed plays the lowest seed (when advancing the highest seeds each round). An easy way to check to see if you designed a bracket properly is to count the total seeds in a particular game. Notice how in the round of 16 it always adds up to 17 (when advancing higher seeds). It's also 9 total for the quarterfinals, 5 total for the semifinals, etc..

Just look at any bracket from an ACTUAL NCAA tournament. A #6 vs #7 match-up is IMPOSSIBLE that early in the tournament.

I know what I am talking about.
Daryl

For the record, the bracket was created using this:
http://exceltemplates.net/sports/tournament-bracket/
Which I assumed did things correctly.

Not disagreeing with you though Brad, it definitely seems odd that we could have #6 vs #7 in second round and so on.
Bruno

I agree with Brad. His format makes much more sense.
Brad

This is an excellent site, but the format for the March Madness style bracket is BADLY BUTCHERED. If you advance the top seeds past the first round, then you SHOULD have:

1-16, 8-9, 4-13, 5-12, 2-15, 7-10, 3-14, 6-11
(In other words, the sum of all the second round match-ups of higher seeds would be 17)

Instead, you have potential higher-seed match-ups like #5 Germany-#8 England & #6 Portugal-#7 France. And you also have potential games like a #14-#10 match-up!!! That's insane. The first two games combined have almost the same total number as the #14-#10 game (26 vs. 24).

Here is what the TOURNAMENT SHOULD LOOK LIKE IF THE FORMAT IS PROPERLY APPLIED:

1 Spain
32 N Korea

16 Uruguay
17 Cameroon

8 England
25 Algeria

9 Argentina
24 Slovakia

4 Italy
29 S Korea

13 Mexico
20 Australia

5 Germany
28 Japan

12 Chile
21 Slovenia

2 Brazil
31 S Africa

15 USA
18 Nigeria

7 France
26 Denmark

10 Greece
23 Paraguay

3 Netherlands
30 New Zealand

14 Switzerland
19 Cote d'Ivoire

6 Portugal
27 Honduras

11 Serbia
22 Ghana
Bashar

This is an interesting game to play. Would be cool to see this happen in the Europa League for example with UEFA coefficients determining seedings.

Although not sure how well it would work. I think the Italian cup do something like this.

That does not take into account is that (if this were a reality) the hosts would be one of the top seeds if not the #1. So South Africa would play North Korea.
Jon

I wanted England to get revenge against Portugal but England and France for the finals would be crazy!
Daryl

Blog of Sport,

Can I assume your comment was intended for this post:
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/david-beckham-out-of-world-cup-2010-will-you-miss-him.html