FIFA World Cup Challenge Pools

The World Cup is arguably the world's most popular sporting event. Football (or Soccer to Americans who just NEED to be different) is not only the most popular sport in the world but creates an incredible fervor every four years. Whether or not you choose to run a pool for the Men's World Cup or the Women's World Cup, it's a great opportunity to enjoy the tournament with your family, friends, and colleagues.

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World Cup Challenge Format

Initially, it's important to note that our main FIFA World Cup format is broken up into two stages: the Group Stage followed by the Knockout Stage.

Both the Men's World Cup and the Women's World Cup follow the same format. The only difference is that fewer countries participate in the Women's World Cup.

Group Stage—In the group stage, the teams that qualified for the tournament (32 for men, 24 for women) are broken into groups containing four teams each. Each team competes in a round robin tournament with the other three teams in its group. The two top teams in each group advance to the Knockout Stage. For the women, the four top 3rd place teams will also advance.
Knockout Stage—The remaining 16 teams participate in a single elimination bracket pool. For those of you familiar with the NCAA Basketball tournament, think of the Knockout round as the soccer equivalent to the Sweet 16.

How Do World Cup Challenge Pools Work?

Here are the rules for our World Cup Soccer pools:

Pool Commissioners have the option of including both the Group and Knockout Stage or limiting their pool to just the Knockout Stage.
For the Group stage, pool members predict the finishing position of each team in all the groups and points are awarded for correct predictions. Points are awarded for each correct team ranking in each of the eight groups. As an example, if one (1) point is awarded per correct ranking, members could earn up to 32 points in the group stage (all 4 rankings correct in all 8 groups).
For the Knockout stage, members pick all 15 games in the bracket and are awarded points for correct picks. They will pick the ACTUAL teams qualifying for bracket play, NOT those they predicted to advance. This means they will fill out their brackets AFTER the Group Stage is completed.
Point values for both stages are configurable by the Pool Commissioner.
The goal is to be the member with the most points at the end of the World Cup Tournament.

Most World Cup Pools will include the Group stage to allow more pick variation.

World Cup Challenge Pool Samples

The following samples are just a few of the reports you'll see for your pool. Click to view more detailed samples:

Group Stage
Pick Sheet

Knockout Stage
Pick Sheet

Pool-wide Leaderboard Report

Group Stage
Pick Summary

Final Four
Predictions Report

How You'll Save Time

We do all the hard work to make sure that your World Cup Soccer pool runs smoothly:

No more collecting picks on paper or in e-mail. Members login to the website directly to make their picks.
No more calculating standings and explaining errors. Pool standings are automatically updated for you.
No more need to distribute standings. Members simply login to the site to see updates.
Keep your members interested. We create all the reports your members will want to see ... and more!

Brand your Pool

Add your company or organization logo to customize the look of your FIFA World Cup pool. For more information, see our Brand Your Pool page.

Private Message Boards

Every World Cup pool hosted at RunYourPool.com includes a free, private message board. Your pool's message board, accessible only to your pool members, is a great way to communicate with members.

Start your Pool Today - No Upfront Fee or Obligation!

Start your FIFA World Cup Football with us today. If you have any additional questions, please contact us via email at support@runyourpool.com. We're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Start Your World Cup Pool

Pricing

We've recently upgraded our pricing structure to introduce a free tier! You can view the new tier structure on our Pricing page.