Paper № V · Rating systems · May 2026 · 14 pages
Who Pays for the Extra Knockout Round at the 2026 World Cup?
The new round of 32, measured in Elo.
Sample entry Seeded from real work while the archive is under construction. The published paper replaces it.
The 2026 World Cup expands to 48 teams and adds a round of 32, one extra knockout match between the favorites and the trophy. This paper builds an Elo model of the field and measures who that extra coin-flip costs the most. The answer is the strongest teams; the paper puts numbers on how much.
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