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You want to know who it is, read the news (or cheat and go directly to the bottom of it).
First, what is the RZA Teams World Cup? This is a friendly cup that will take place every 4 seasons and gathers 16 teams from 16 countries. The highest ELO ranked team of each country is invited to the competition. You can find more info on the forum.
For this first edition, the playing teams are:
We can immediately see that group 2 is the most difficult to play in. It is the result of a live drawing with [post=100156903]seeds[/post]. Every single team probably wanted to avoid playing the Willemstad Bridges, double Elite champion, and the Salt City Pirates, best rated team ever. Tough luck for TigerCats and the Dumbarajko Elephants!
Easy path for some, a true combat for others
After two weeks played, we already knew the qualified teams for the knock-out rounds in groups 1 and 4. The Losing Ducks, the San Diego Blitz, the Baltimore Ravens and the AS Roma Wolves got to play a game with very little stakes. Both Seadevils teams won this game and their group.
In group 2 and 3, it was very tight until the hand. If the Dumbarajko Elephants and the Free Mascot Agents could not win a game, the 6 other teams finished with 2 wins and 1 loss. Only the points difference allowed the Salt City Pirates, the Green Mark Packers (respectively winner of group 2 and 3), the Willemstad Bridges and the BobBoy Magpies to live another day.
And then they were eight
The quarter finals were epic. First, the line-up was impressive. Then, all games were a true battle.
The Magpies had to tie the game with only 55 second left and score an OT touchdown to send the UK in the Final 4.
The Pirates, after taking the lead at the beginning of Q4, managed to keep away the Blitz from their endzone in order to win by 8 points only. It was the biggest margin of the day!
The Ducks on their side did not trail during the game, but were under a lot of pressure after the Bridges cut their lead from 17 points to only 7 with still two minutes to play.
Finally after trailing by 13 points, the Packers managed to overturn the situation to win the last ticket to the semi-final thanks to a late Q4 touchdown and only a 1 point margin over the Wolves.
Four team for one crown
Two games to decide who will play the final. UK, Austria, Germany and France are still in and ready to relaunch old rivalries.
After a very balanced first half (14:12), the Packers kept the Magpies scoreless in the second one and gave Austria a large win.
On the second game, the Ducks took the lead early and kept it until late in Q4. The Pirates scored a TD putting them ahead by 1 point with less than 4 minutes left. It could have been enough for the French team to score the winning field goal, but an heroic German defense kept them away from the scoring range.
Der Endgültige
And here we go! Our very first RZA Teams World Cup final! Austria versus Germany! You can be sure that the stadium is packed with beer drinkers and people wearing socks in sandals!
The obvious favorites were Germany and the Pirates. They carried this tag from the beginning of the competition with their 90 rated team. But the beauty of every final is that nobody can predict its winner for sure. And the Packers from Austria played well. They played so well they managed to be always within a 1 score margin during the first three quarters. They took the lead for the first time in Q4 with 10 minutes left to play and resisted the Pirates until the end for a 1 point win.
France and the Losing Ducks get the bronze medal after having a better record than England and the Magpies during the competition.
See you in season 46 for the RZA Teams World CuP II !
Thanks to Kanar for the review!
Tags: News
