I personally wouldn't mind it lasting longer, but then you risk inactive teammates. I suppose we have alternates to alleviate that though.

If we decide for RRs, one thing i think we should do is begin all the 3 games at the same time (we can have fewer games in rrs).
Otherwise people that get defeated by a large margin wont play out the next games.
Double elimination is also bad, since the double bracket ads a lot of rounds more.

lets continue this talk to try and define this as soon as possible.

RR take too much time guys. remember last time. 4 month + a lot of inactive guys.

I agree with single elimination,
but the method might be harsh for the 16 first loosers that will play 1 game only.

lol.
isn't goof reason for waste month on RR ;)

Then we ask the 16 losers if they wish to play another match, just for fun. See how many "yes'es" we get, and have a certain amount of friendlies, alongside the competition.

The way I see it (though I cannot claim infallibility :p ), in order of importance:

1: Top priority: get this thing started. A long tournament risks losing people; talking endlessly without getting anywhere will have the same result, only much worse.

2: My strong preference (and I've seen a lot of people agreeing with it): if you manually assign teams, spend a reasonable amount of effort on postponing matches between teams from the same country as long as possible. An alternative would be fully random, but do not deliberately put them together.

3: What Dom365 said, that's a pretty nifty idea in all its simplicity!

Yeah, please make teams from the same region not face each other until semi-finals (like USA Central 1-3, I do not include East or West as they are different regions in this).

I would use NCAA March Madness Bracket format (1 half).

Like this:
http://www.threedogyoga.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ncaa_finalfour_bracket_blank.jpg

And snake the ranks/points you already have among the top seeds.

I will do this and post in a few minutes.

Here is my seeding based on points...

*Note that the US Central 2 (3 way tie) was moved to top bracket and Neth 2 was moved to bottom (both 6 seeds) to avoid match-up with their #1 teams before finals. Poland 2 was also placed in top bracket and GB/Ireland 2 for same reason (3 way tie for 8/9 seeds). USA Central 3 placed farthest spot from #1 and #2 teams (10 seed) for same reasons (3 way tie).

These are all the teams that got votes, the rest can be filled in randomly:

1 - Brazil 1
16 -

8 - Poland 2
9 - Czech

5 - France 1
12

4 - Neth 1
13

6 - USA Central 2
11 - Canada

3 - Germany
14

7 - Lithuania
10 - USA Central 3

2 - GB/Ireland 1
15



1 - Italy 1
16 -

8 - Aus/NZ
9 - GB/Ireland 2

5 - Norway
12

4 - Poland 1
13

6 - Neth 2
11 - France 2

3 - USA Central 1
14

7 - USA West
10 - Serbia

2 - Isreal 1
15

I say we vote on my bracket. It seems to be the best option for single elim (using our points and avoiding our own teammates as long as possible (I only moved them to an equivalent seed in the cases I stated)

Missed USA East in last post. Put them back in, and put the rest in randomly, again avoiding possible match-ups with countrymen:

1 - Brazil 1
16 - Croatia 2

8 - Poland 2
9 - Czech

5 - France 1
12 - USA Central 3

4 - Neth 1
13 - Aus/Switz

6 - USA Central 2
11 - Canada

3 - Germany
14 - Poland 3

7 - Lithuania
10 - Serbia

2 - GB/Ireland 1
15 - Brazil 3



1 - Italy 1
16 - Croatia 1

8 - USA West
9 - Aus/NZ

5 - Norway
12 - Neth 3

4 - Poland 1
13 - GB/Ireland 3

6 - USA East
11 - France 2

3 - USA Central 1
14 - Brazil 2

7 - Neth 2
10 - GB/Ireland 2

2 - Isreal 1
15 - Poland 4

i like it. seems ok for me. Will be a little more fast then last nation cup, this should reduce inactive factor (i hope :P)

There might be some changes in Croatia 2 team, one player is inactive...

Make that 2... (sorry for double post)

I like Chris` brackets :D

I agree with the bracket of ChrisCMU for a single elimination, looks pretty decent. (except it's Neth/FL instead of Neth and Israel instead of Isreal).



An alternative idea is that every team remains in play until it has two losses, but you don't use the double elimination format.
Instead, you simply do a draw every round based on the records in the previous rounds and teams get eliminated after 2 losses.
The advantages are that it is quicker than double elimination, everyone gets at least 2 teams, teams that drop-out can be cut in the next round (even with only 1 loss or no losses) and teams never have to wait out more than 1 round (and the team that gets a bye when there is an odd number of teams left is always the team with the best record at that moment)
The disadvantage is that it's not a nice "bracket" win-or-die format (more similar to a ladder), that it lasts longer than a single elimination and the draws may get complicated after several rounds to avoid rematches and nationalities (which is not a problem for me and probably some others are perfectly capable to do this too).

For 32 teams, the maximum number of rounds is 10, the minimum 6. Single elimination has 5 rounds, round robin has 7 rounds, double round robin 9 rounds, standard double elimination 11 rounds (with up to 4 rounds wait for the single elimination winner).

Example (longest possible) with 8 teams: (> means wins)
Round 1
A > B
C > D
E > F
G > H
1-0: A, C, E, G
0-1: B, D, F, H

2nd round is always winner against loser:
Round 2
A > H
B > E
C > F
D > G
2-0: A, C
1-1: B, D (opponent record 3-1)
1-1: E, G (opponent record 1-3)
0-2: F, H (out - 7th place)

3rd round better records play against worse records, tiebreaker opponent record
If possible no rematches and same nationality
Round 3
A > E
G > C
B > D
3-0: A
2-1: B (opponent record 5-4)
2-1: C, G (opponent record 3-5)
1-2: D, E (out - 5th place)

Round 4
C > A
B > G
3-1: A (opponent record 7-6)
3-1: B (opponent record 7-7)
3-1: C (opponent record 6-7)
2-2: G (out - 4th place)

Round 5
B > C
A bye
4-1: B (opponent record 10-9)
3-1: A (opponent record 8-7)
3-2: C (out - 3rd place)

Finals
A vs B

i still think single elimination with cris'bracket is best and simple idea.

One thing i have to complain about Chris Bracket: why the hell you have 2 seed groups, one for each side?
There is another purpose outside USA with this 2 seed list numbers unless you are dividing USA by half?

That is just a joke, i would prefer tennis seedind but is the same thing.
And what did you use to randomize teams into the bracket?
random.org generators are a good idea, and very easy after you put 16 teams in the bracket (also we have to sort out the teams that have the same seed, and make a few tweaks to not put play against same nations).

I would like to make an liveish coverage of sorting out the brackets, and not use seeds 100% precise, if we consider into 1 group of 4, a second of 4, than a third group of 8, we also randomize all brackets, without some pre-defined quartefinal/semifinal situation.

Sorry about the typos (spelling is not my best attribute).

Dunga -

I used the random list sort on that website you listed. I did not save the results, but I had to move a Poland team and Brazil team to the other side to avoid matchups. Otherwise it was random. Though if you want, you could just do it live like you said. Doesn't matter to me.

The only reason I used 'two' brackets is because the matchups are already that way for NCAA Basketball. made it easier to get the seed matchups correct. It also makes it easier to shift a team to the same seed based on same country matchups. You could just as easily have 32 seeds though, it would not effect where the teams are placed now though.

Here is one with 1-32 teams: http://www.printyourbrackets.com/pdfbrackets/32singleseeded.pdf

The method I used was #1 team (Brazil) in top #1 spot, #2 (Italy) in bottom #1 slot, #3 (Israel) in bottom #2, #4 (GB/Ireland) in #2 top slot, etc. So I just snaked between the slots like that based on the vote results.