Goal cards are the primary way for a team to score and they come in a couple of varieties, ranging from the basic one-goal card to cards that allow players to place one-goal tiles on two or three different teams and multiple goal cards that let a player fill a box with a two or three goal chit depending on the team’s skill ranking. Attack cards fill a box with a corresponding counter that counts for half a goal, effectively representing that a team is playing offensively and investing resources on a striking game. Fouls and Offside enable a player to flip over a previously played goal counter (rendering it a waste of valuable space) or reduce a multiple goal counter to a lower value. Defense cards can be used to drop a defense token into a box to protect all previously played goals and attacks from interference or can be used to force an opposing team to play defensively- thus filling up their boxes and preventing potential goals. A Penalty Kick card gives the player the chance to take a die roll and make a goal- or wind up with a wasted box.

But here’s the kicker: players can play these cards to any match, even those in which they don’t have a team, except in the playoff rounds. So it’s entirely possible for players to gang up on the murder-squad black teams and make sure they never get to the finals. It’s also possible for players to help each other out, negotiate a little, and work together while remaining competitive. So if top-ranked France is winning two of the three matches in its group, then another player in that group could solicit a little assistance from other players to make sure that their hopes and dreams are squashed before they get any further by filling up all of their boxes with defense or half-goal attack tiles. This would be decried as a “gang up on the leader” problem in some gaming quarters, but it is an essential accessory to what makes THE WORLD CUP GAME so much fun, a balancing element more dependant on player interaction than on propped-up, gamey mechanics that would strip the game of a lot of its impetus for table talk and diplomacy.

The first round in the longer tournaments is usually resolved with two passes through the deck or one in the shorter ones. At the end of the round, total scores are tabulated and then the game throws one huge monkey wrench into the whole affair. A set of four six-sided dice with colored dots are thrown for each group. Each team with a ranking matching the colors showing on the dice gets a half goal per dot- so if two red dots come up, every red team in the group gets a full goal. And here again, the black teams demonstrate their power and threat by having an awful lot of black dots on those dice. It’s an awesome finale to a round since many matches may hang on a single goal- ties can be broken, total upsets can happen, and drama is sure to transpire. Once the die roll is made and all goals are tabulated, everything is entered on to a score sheet and points are awarded for wins and draws and of course the teams with the top scores move to the next round and are matched up based on the format for the particular tournament that is being played. Later rounds generally use shorter decks since there are only a few teams left at that point- the finals and the title match use just twelve cards to resolve the matches so literally every single play is crucial.

Just like in real life, the tournament is a winnowing away of the teams not fit for a shot at the title. One of the things I love more than anything else about this game is how it eventually becomes literally a one-on-one game between two players and almost always it seems to be either a dramatic, smash-mouth match between two of the top ranked teams or an even more exciting and tense game between one of the top ranked teams and a Cinderella story underdog. One of the nice things about this, however, is that once the game enters the final rounds it accelerates quite a bit- after the main elimination rounds that comprise the bulk of playtime, the game generally wraps up in around fifteen minutes- and everybody is going to want to stick around to see what happens even if they get eliminated early in the game if only to see their rivals take a hard fall in a finals match.

THE WORLD CUP GAME, almost impossibly, plays in a reasonable amount of time (45-120 minutes seems to be normal depending on the tournament size) regardless of the number of players involved and this is a game that supports up to sixteen players. The scaling for player numbers is mostly handled by playing larger tournaments for bigger groups and the larger tournaments (like the 2002, 2006, or 2008 Cups) naturally take a little longer to play than the ones with fewer teams like the short-but-sweet Uruguay 1930 tournament . Regardless of the number of players, every team gets played by somebody so if four players play a sixteen team tournament, then everybody will get four teams. But this game that plays best with a big, boisterous, and highly competitive group and the almost constant interaction and minimal downtime keeps everyone interested, watching results, and directly affecting the outcome of the entire game. Smaller and shorter games are every bit as satisfying as large group games and are sometimes preferable as it can be a little difficult for new players to keep track of four or five teams each competing in three matches among several different groups.

The basic game includes mounted boards for the Uruguay 1930 and South Korea 2002 tournaments. The first expansion adds three more tournaments along with an extra sheet of flag markers that complete the set included in the base game so that every country to ever play in the World Cup is represented. You have to have that first expansion to play the other two, which add more years with slightly different formats, rankings, and some modified rules. It’s hard to call the expansions essential since it remains the same basic game, but one of the primary concepts of the game is that it represents the history of the World Cup and it’s really kind of a shame to not have the whole range available for play. What’s more, the different numbers of teams and setups add a lot of variety and replay value to the game, even if they don’t necessarily add all that much to the core way it is played. The expansion boards are printed on cardstock rather than the standard boards in the base game. Some might find that terribly offensive, but I really couldn’t care less.