These are the stickers that are to be used in conjuction with the Actual 2010 Performance variant
This variant does three things:
1) It ranks the teams according to their actual rather than their estimated performance in the 2010 World Cup.
2) It ranks the teams using the colour/color coding of the World Cup Board Games series.
3) It accentuates the differences in the different ranks so that the better ranks should perform better more of the time, when compared to the original card game. (The orginal card game didn't have the benefit of hindsight of actual performance and therefore needed to treat teams more equally).
To play this game:
1) Download from this site, the file 'World Cup 2010 Actual Performance Stickers.jpg'
2) Print off this file, (ideally on a colour printer or if you only have access to a B&W printer than use colour pens to mark the stickers appropriately).
The stickers are designed to fit between the flag and the list of matches and cover the original estimated rankings. However, you could always place them somewhere else on the card if you want the option to play both the original and this variant format.
All the same rules of the card game apply except:
1) The cards are ranked as per the boardgame:
Black (finalists)
Red (semi finalists)
Blue (Quarter Finalists and a few that nearly qualified for this stage)
Green (Teams that reached the last 16 and those that nearly reached the last 16 in the group stages)
Yellow (Teams that did not come near to qualifying in the group stages but scored a point)
White (Teams that did not come near to qualifying in the group stages and did not even score a point)
2) There are 3 parameters for each rank and the last 2 are as per the board game:
A) The number of cards that each team receives for the whole of the Group stages.
B) The maximum number of cards that can be played in any one match is based on their rank and can be 2, 3 or 4 (not just 4 as in the original card game). This number is equal to the number of available token slots on the board game for each colour rank. Black and Red had 4; Blue and Green had 3 and Yellow and White had 2.
C) The maximum number of goals that can be scored from 1 card. This is the same as the board game where Black/Read/Blue can score 3 goals from 1 card but Green can only score 2 and Yellow and White 1.
This variant now fits in better with the boardgame in the knockout rounds.
So the parameters end up as follows (all printed neatly in the download file):
Black___9-4-3
Red_____8-4-3
Blue____8-3-3
Green___7-3-2
Yellow__7-2-1
White___6-2-1
It's worked brilliantly in a couple of the evenings that we have tried it.
Also, quite apart from this variant, when we had a 5 player evening we found that the following team selection format worked very well.
We took all 4 team cards from Group A and added the top ranked team from Group B. The players then randomly chose a team and all Group A players played this round and the other player was happy knowing that they while they weren't playing this in this Group, they would be playing in the next group with the best team.
When it comes to round B, we included the remaining 3 Group B teams and added the top team from group C. The player who already had a Group B team from the earlier round does not draw a card this turn. That way there will always be 4 different players in each group and everyone is happy.
Based on the above criteria I ranked the teams as follows:
Group A
France Yellow
Mexico Green
South Africa Green
Uruguay Red
Group B
S. Korea Green
Nigeria Yellow
Greece Green
Argentina Blue
Group C
USA Green
England Green
Slovenia Green
Algeria Yellow
Group D
Germany Red
Ghana Blue
Serbia Green
Australia Green
Group E
Netherlands Black
Japan Blue
Denmark Green
Cameroon White
Group F
Paraguay Blue
Slovakia Blue
New Zealand Green (yeah)
Italy Yellow
Group G
Portugal Blue
Brazil Blue
Ivory coast Green
N. Korea White
Group H
Spain Black
Chile Green
Switzerland Green
Honduras Yellow
