Sarzonia: Sarzonia has had a long tradition of footballing excellence dating back to the days when many current football powers had not even sent their first teams to compete on the world stage. Its first-ever national team finished a respectable third in the inaugural Atlantian Oceania Cup of Association Football before making its world debut in the third Baptism of Fire Cup.
In the years since, Sarzonia have won a Baptism of Fire Cup, the 10th Cup of Harmony and World Cup XXII. The team became just the third to qualify for four consecutive World Cup semifinals and spent four World Cup cycles as the top-ranked team in the world.
Sarzonian historians divide the nation's history into two "eras", "pre-isolation", before founding president Mike Sarzo was initially diagnosed with an aggressive form of testicular cancer and "post-isolation", which included the nearly yearlong period of mourning and introversion and deliberate avoidance of international affairs by the Incorporated States.
Saugeais: Saugeais has long since considered football to be the national sport, have most of 200 million either watch or participate throughout the season. The Saugeais Premiere League is one of the fastest growing leagues in the world, even having been around for over 60 years. Being a nation on the coast, especially with capital Montbenoit right on the water, the weather will be erratic at times. It could switch from bright and sunny to wet and windy in the matter of minutes. Tornadoes have been known to pop up every now and then across the country, drastically affecting gameplay for one of the local clubs who play through these storms.
Saugeais’ football stadiums come in all shapes and sizes, but are mostly modest buildings. The majority of the stadia capacities are below 50,000, with the national stadium, Stade de Montagne, the only one with over 60,000, with a capacity of 64,500. That doesn’t take away from the general atmosphere of football matches. The fans are the most loyal (and most rowdy) fans you’ll ever meet at a match.
Being a coastal nation also brings in the tourists, who like to frequent the beaches on the shores of Lake Branta. Many of the host cities have excellent shopping districts, and great transportation systems to easily move visitors from hotel, to match site, to shopping malls, and back again.
Experience: While Saugeais has not hosted any major football tournaments, sticking to the domestic leagues, they have had success hosting events in other sports, namely the Saugeais Open Baseball Tournament.
Meanwhile, Sarzonia has a wealth of hosting experience in several sports, both in the "pre-isolation" era and "post-isolation." In the pre-isolation era, Sarzonia hosted the inaugural AO Bowl, a gridball competition featuring national teams from Atlantian Oceania nations, co-hosting two editions of the Basketball World Cup and co-hosting the Futsal World Cup.
In post-isolation, however, Sarzonia has hosted the overwhelming majority of its events, including some of the larger, more important events in the multiverse. As of this writing, Sarzonia is preparing to host the largest World Bowl in terms of participants in the event's history. Sarzonia also co-hosted the 45th edition of the Cup of Harmony with Rejistania. In addition, Sarzonia has hosted the fifth Baptism of Iron for debutant gridball nations prior to World Bowl X; three editions of the NS Arena Bowl and its predecessor tournament, the Sarzonian Indoor Gridball Cup; the seventh Handball World Championships; four editions of the World Lacrosse Championships, including an unprecedented three consecutive WLCs, and the inaugural World Softball Classic. Finally, Sarzonia co-founded the Mike Sarzo Memorial Trophy with Starblaydia, and that tournament has taken its place as being one of the most prestigious and most highly revered tournaments, if not the most prestigious or highly revered, outside WCC purview.
Scorination: Should this bid win, the hosts will use NSFS 3.0.1 to scorinate results, using a combination of official KPB ranking points and RP bonus.
RP Bonus: RP bonus will be calculated with the most recent RP bonuses carrying the most weight, rewarding consistent RPers. Only the first RP created on a particular day will be counted toward that day's/night's matchday if someone posts multiple RPs on the same day.
Criteria will be based largely on knowledge of the sport, quality, creativity, etc. Nations earning the maximum RP bonus will have written a long, compelling, detailed post with no grammatical errors.
Style Modifiers: Permitted style modifiers will range from minus-3 (defensive) to plus-3 (offensive). These shall be initially indicated in the roster post, along with various permissions (more on that later).
Format: Simple, straightforward, round robin group stage. Teams will be divided into multiples of four. The hosts will accept the first 32 nations who accept our invitation into the Cup. The 32 teams will be divided into eight groups of four, with four groups playing in Saugeais and four groups playing in Sarzonia.
Teams will be extended offers to compete in the Cup of Harmony based on the following criteria: Either one (1) RP post and a roster post by the third-to-last day before qualifying ends OR at least three (3) RP posts and a roster post by the end of qualifying. This set of criteria is in place to establish objective criteria by which the hosts will determine which teams to invite. In addition, the hosts hope to forestall the possibility of nations posting a RP to become "CoH eligible."
Following the group stage, the top two teams from each group will advance to a single elimination knockout round. The locations of the third place playoff and final will be determined. My prospective co-host and I will discuss tiebreakers and will announce those in this post.
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