The Shakespeare World Cup
The Teams | Groups A & B | Groups C & D | Groups E & F | Groups G & H | Group Stage Summary, pt. 1 | Group Stage Summary, pt. 2 | Round of 16 Summary | Quarter Finals Summary | Semi Finals Summary | Final Summary
The World Cup starts tomorrow! YAY! Football (or soccer, depending on your geographic location and cultural preferences) is my soap opera of choice, and I am really looking forward to a month of international angst and drama.
For those of my readers who are totally uninterested in football, I have selected 32 Shakespeare plays to stand in for the 32 international teams competing in the World Cup. They have been paired together courtesy of a very complicated scientific formula in which I listed the teams according to the totally not-arbitrary FIFA ranking system, then listed the plays according to line counts, and matched the plays together. Team captains were then appointed according to their own line counts (with Hotspur stepping to to replace Falstaff and Hal, both of whom captain other teams).
Six plays didn't make the cut: Henry IV, part 2 and Henry VI, parts 1 and 2 were disqualified for having parts with the same name already in the tournament, while Henry VIII, Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen were axed on account of excessive collaboration. Don't argue with me! My decisions are ineffable and incorruptible, just like FIFA's.
(That was a joke.)
So, without further ado, here are your competitors for this year's Shakespeare World Cup!
I'll be checking back periodically to explain why these totally arbitrary pairings work perfectly (Netherlands = Richard II! I mean, come on!) and to catch up with results.
The Shakespeare World Cup
The Teams | Groups A & B | Groups C & D | Groups E & F | Groups G & H | Group Stage Summary, pt. 1 | Group Stage Summary, pt. 2 | Round of 16 Summary | Quarter Finals Summary | Semi Finals Summary | Final Summary