I’m not much of a team sports fan. In fact, anything involving a bunch of uniformed guys or gals chasing after a ball for any reason is pretty much on my shortlist for things to abolish if I ever wind up as God Emperor of Planet Earth. Maybe it stems from my first time at bat in Little League- the first pitch ever thrown my way in a regulation game took a chunk of my chin off. I got to first base, but my taste for baseball was soured forever. Everything I know about football I learned from playing TECMO BOWL, not from watching any of the Super Bowls, and basketball seems like about the most pointless thing in the world unless you’re the one being paid a billion dollars a year to throw a ball in a basket.

But I have always kind of liked soccer, even if on an extremely casual level. Maybe it’s the element of truly international competition or it could be the constant motion and flow of a game. Or it could be the dramatic breakthrough and release of tension when a goal is finally scored after an hour or so of punting a ball back and forth. Whatever the case, I think soccer- or football- is pretty OK. I wouldn’t recognize any players beyond Best, Beckham, Zidane, Ronaldo, and of course Pele and I still don’t really understand the offside rules, but if I had to keep one sport off the imperial termination docket it would definitely be soccer. But I’d rename it “football” in the US because it just makes more sense. And it would just be the right thing to do.

So a couple of months ago I had an unexplainable urge to pick up a soccer-themed board game. I really wanted something that would capture the high level of competition and drama that you’d see in a soccer match along with strong tactical play and a fair balance of abstraction and simulation. A little research online lead to a couple of potential titles (mostly out of print or difficult to find) but I didn’t really see anything that interested me enough to net the ball, so to speak. What’s more, I wanted something that I could play with a group and most sports games naturally tend to be one-on-one affairs and I’ve come to generally steer clear of two player games that aren’t war games. There just really wasn’t much out there that was available that fit my list of expectations.

But there was still hope that we’d be hitting the cardboard pitch, hollering “GOAL!” and running around the table with arms outstretched. I had recalled reading about a soccer game from the UK that was a multiplayer game. Its concept was a recreation of the whole World Cup tournament with expansions that provided brackets, rankings, and formats for different years. It had become available in the US earlier this year through an exclusive distributor and although it was outrageously expensive ($60 for the base game and $25 a piece for the three expansions), I realized after reading the rules online that it was exactly what I was looking for. THE WORLD CUP GAME, designed by first-time designer Shaun Derrick and published in the UK by Games for the World, proved to be a lot more than I bargained for. Not only is THE WORLD CUP GAME the best game of any type, theme, or genre I have played all year but it is also the best sports game I have ever played- period.

THE WORLD CUP GAME is essentially a simple, extremely straightforward card game with a record-keeping board resembling a wall chart that tracks the progress of the various teams seeded in the World Cup tournament- different years have different ranges of teams and sometimes different formats or structures. It is a very high-level, fairly abstract game so rather than detailed on-the-pitch action the game focuses on representing the entire tournament with all matches in each phase essentially being played simultaneously—typically in a series of rounds that culminate in quarterfinals, semifinals, and eventually a thrilling one-on-one showdown between the top two teams.

Each tournament is historically accurate in terms of initial matchups and bracketing and the emphasis is smartly on accuracy over balance- if you get the bad teams, you’ve just got to play smarter to win so don’t expect the game to prop you with some kind of artificial balancing scheme. Despite the historicity, it is also not a game of statistics or team management, so those looking for CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER-style gameplay should look elsewhere. Each team is ranked on a six-level color-coded scale with the black teams being the best (meaning they have the potential to score the most goals and have more flexibility) and the white ones being the worst (having less opportunity overall).

The actual gameplay is ridiculously easy; I’m convinced that Mr. Derrick wanted the game to be easy enough for the lads down at the pub to play after a few pints and I’m positive that there’s an awesome drinking game lurking behind the rules somewhere. The game takes about three minutes to explain, but allow for another two if you have tipsy gamers at the table. Players are randomly allocated a number of national teams of various rankings that they will try to push through the tournament to claim the cup. A relatively small deck of cards is the critical component and a player’s hand is limited to just three cards. A turn is the most basic play a card, draw a card routine with no exceptions, interruptions, or “clever” mechanics to muddle up the proceedings. It’s very refreshing to play a game that is so clear-cut and accessible without the usual limitations on player choices and interaction that usually accompany simple designs.

There are just a few different types of cards, most of which add a chit to one of a team’s boxes—the better teams (which vary from tournament to tournament) have more boxes in each of their matches, which is how the game depicts the natural imbalances between teams of varying ability. The poorer teams have fewer boxes to play into and will require smarter play and even a little negotiation to get out of the first stages and into the knockout rounds.