MARKTAG’S HEROESThe Sport of Blood Bowl in Warhammer Fantasy

RoleplayBy Dennis Higgins

There had been some talk on the Black Industries forums about the sports of Snotball and Blood Bowl. Being an avid sports, as well as WFRP, fan, I thought long and hard about the world of sport in the game. First, I never really liked the concept of Snotball. While I am sure there are therapeutic benefits to kicking around the little bastards, I had trouble believing they would keep snotlings captive for sporting purposes. Now, Orcs and Ogres doing the same with Halflings, I could buy, but not humans doing it to snotlings. I immediately thought of Blood Bowl. Now, Blood Bowl, as it is written, is completely unacceptable for the WFRP setting. There doesn’t look to be anything wrong with the actual play of the game, just the huge arenas, lights, monster teams, and the like. So, I just threw it all out. I don’t see a jet-setting modern sports scenario of teams all over the Empire competing against each other like our athletes do today, so my vision was for a bunch of isolated leagues and tournaments. There are leagues and cups, much like European Football (You know, the round ball kind), all with their own character. The leagues are pretty straight forward, but the cups will certainly require more explanation. The Emperor’s Cup (which does not give His Imperial Majesty 1 AP to lower body hits) is certainly the most confusing and I’ll explain that one last.

The Imperial Blood Bowl LeaguesIt takes a city to have a Blood Bowl league, and a decent sized one at that. I took all of the cities that had four or more teams and decided that they would naturally form a league. The bigger the league, the more it is the focus of a city’s Blood Bowl fervor, ignoring some of the “lesser” tournaments out there.The Blood Bowl Leagues of Altdorf – 10 teamsCompetition:Altdorf’s Blood Bowl league is broken up into two flights, The Upper League and The Lower League. Each team plays each team in its flight four times, twice home and twice away. The winning team gets three points for the standings, losing team gets none, and in the event of a tie, one point is awarded to both teams. At the end of the 16 game season, the team in the top flight with the most points is the Altdorf League Champion. The fifth place team in the Upper League and the points leader of the Lower League play a game against each other at the Upper League team’s stadium to see which of the two teams will compete in the Upper League the following year. The fifth place team in the Lower League is usually looking for a new manager.Teams:The top two teams in the city are Autler BBC and Helmerstrasse BBC. They are traditionally the teams fighting for the Upper League championship each season. The other teams which tend to move between the two flights are: Baustelle BBC, Bechsgarten BBC, Schrottplatz BBC and Walfen BBC. Akademie BBC, Altdorfer 2430 BBC, Hochloff BBC, and Rottefach BBC are usually stuck in the lower flight and a stellar season is one where they are promoted to the Upper League. Style:While Altdorf gave the sport of Blood Bowl the infamous “Capital City Offense,” a fast passing style which amazes the audience and annoys the purists to no end, the difficulty at finding good enough Throwers and Runners makes it just one of the many styles of play you’ll see. Autler and Helmerstrasse are the only teams that can pull off the Capital City Offense regularly. Lower League teams typically play a very crude and dirty form, focusing on hitting and running.Culture:Altdorf is ravenous when it comes to Blood Bowl. A match between the fourth and fifth teams in the Lower League is as passionately followed as a game where the championship is on the line. Partly because there are so many different competitions (The Leagues, The Emperor’s Cup and Qualifiers, the Altdorfer Cup, and often the Four Cities Tournament), the stands are always packed and the crowds are always singing. As passionate as they are, the Altdorf fans are remarkably non-violent for Blood Bowl fans, with the notable exception of when teams from Nuln are in town.Averheim Blood Bowlers – 5 teams

Competition:Averheim’s Blood Bowl competition is very straightforward. Each team plays home and away four times. A team is awarded two points for a win, one point for a tie, and none for a loss. The team with the most points at the end of the season is the champion.Teams:Arbeiter BBC is he undisputed king of Averheim Blood Bowl. No other team has been able to compete with them over the long run. The other teams in the city are Freidendorf BBC, Pferderennbahn BBC, Rughsdorf BBC, and Universitat BBC.Style:True to Averlander style, the Blood Bowl teams tend to be flashy and finesse teams, utilizing trick plays and the Capital City Offense almost exclusively. Arbeiter BBC’s vast talent superiority over the rest of the league means that they are typically the only team who make it look good. Still, the Averland league is one of the more entertaining Blood Bowl leagues in the Empire.Culture:Due to the lack of success Averheimers have had in the Emperor’s Cup, they tend to look inward to their league as the focus of Blood Bowl in the city. Away support for Averheim teams is notoriously low, with minimal fans traveling abroad with their team. The quantity of Blood Bowl related violence is higher than in most cities, with brawls all over the stadiums and town on Marktag. The difference, however, is that in Averheim, the violence is almost exclusively unarmed.Carroburg Blood Bowl Association – 5 teamsCompetition:Like most Blood Bowl leagues, Carroburg has a system where the winner of a match receives three points, if it ends in a draw, both teams receive a point, and nothing if you lose. Each team plays each other four times, home and away, and the overall point champion is the Association Champion.Teams:Markplatz BBC and Mittemacht BBC are the top rivals for the CBBA title each year. Other teams in the league are Barenfahre BBC, Dunkelbild BBC, and Geldklub Carroburg BBC.Style:Carroburg plays a simple game of Bloodbowl, focusing on running plays and aggressive blocking schemes. The lower quality teams tend to move towards a more thuggish style. Mittemacht BBC is an exception, and had recently been running the Capital City Offense. While the aggressive nature of defense in Carroburg has not allowed Mittemacht to excel, they are adapting to it well and look to dominate the city’s sport for a long time to come.Culture:Carroburg is much like Altdorf in that all Blood Bowl competitions are followed by the citizens of the city, be they the local league, the Emperor’s Cup qualifying tournaments, or the Carnivale Cup in Middenheim. The fans of each team are quite insular, however, and Marktag in Carroburg is filled with Blood Bowl-related violence.Hergig Blood Bowl Tournaments – 4 teamsCompetition:Hergig boasts, arguably, the most unique structure in all Imperial Blood Bowl. Instead of a typical league structure, the four city teams play each other in a series of matches. At the start of each season, the teams are paired up in a random draw. The pairs then play nine matches against each other, with each team getting three points for a win, one for a draw, none for a loss. At the end of the series, the teams with the most points play each other in another nine-game series, while the losers do the same.Teams:Altklub Hergig BBC has won considerably more series than its nearest competitor, Edelmann BBC. Hergig Komet BBC and Stockse BBC tend to only win a series when one plays the other.Style:In the grand scheme of Imperial Blood Bowl, Hergig’s teams are some of the poorest in the Empire. They utilize simple tactics, and most matches are really just pitch scrums and brawls where a player will occasionally wriggle free and sprint as near the goal line as he can before the other team pummels him.Culture:Probably because of the poor nature of the teams in Hergig, fan support for the sport in the city is lukewarm. The tournaments have some of the lowest attendances in the Empire. The supporters tend to be the more violent and baser folk in the city, and as a result, Blood Bowl violence is quite nasty in the city, albeit not as common as in other parts of the Empire.

Kusel Blood Bowl Association – 4 teamsCompetition:The Kusel BBA, like most in the Empire, is a straightforward table, and each team plays each other six times, three at each stadium. The winning team gets three points, losing team none, and both teams get one in the event of a draw. At the end of the season, the team with the most points gets the KBBA Trophy.Teams:The undisputed champions of the KBBA are the Kusel Messers BBC, having won 36 of the 52 KBBA Trophies. Rangierbanhof BBC can match the Messers in quality, with their matches being very close every time and a slight edge in Emperor’s Cup trips (25-23), but they can never seem to win out in the league. The other two city teams are Glockenturm BBC and Lohrafurt BBC.Style:As the talent level of Kusel teams are average, the teams tend to play a balanced game, mixing running and passing freely. There is nothing in the Kusel Blood Bowl style which allows them to stand out among other teams in the Empire.Culture:Kusel, like everything about its Blood Bowl, is unremarkable culturally. The only exception being KBBA matches between Kusel Messers BBC and Rangierbanhof BBC. The Messers fans love to remind the fans of Rangierbanhof about their team’s league superiority. This tends to make the fans of Rangierbanhof quite bloodthirsty and bitter. Once the Messers inevitably clinch the league, Rangierbanhof fans go on the offensive and the violence is quite brutal.Grafenliga (Middenheim) – 9 teamsCompetition:A straightforward table league, each of Middenheim’s nine blood bowl teams play each other twice a season. The winner of the match receives two points, the loser none, and one point for a draw. If a winner wins by more than five scores, they receive an additional point for the match. The points leader is the Grafenliga Champion.Teams:Almost all of the teams in the Grafenliga would dominate any other competition in the Empire (with the exception of the Altdorf Upper League or Nulnerliga, where they would still be highly competitive), but Eastend United BBC and Southgate BBC are arguably the two best Blood Bowl teams in all of the Empire. Other Grafenliga teams are Altquartier BBC, Elsterweld BBC, Freiburg BBC, Grafsmund BBC, Norderingen BBC, Ostwald BBC, and Schoninghagen BBC. There is little difference in quality between these teams and every match in the Grafenliga is competitive. While Eastend and Southgate are almost always the league champions (Of the 103 Grafenliga competitions, these two teams have 74 of the titles between them—Eastend 39, Southgate 35), the league almost always comes down to the last two or three weeks of the season.Style:While punishing and physical, the aggressive style of the Grafenliga belies a strong discipline and strategy. Grafenliga players are highly adaptive to new schemes, which tend to appear very simple yet cunning. They eschew the high flying Capital City Offense, and their organized defenses are renowned for being able to shut it down. Grafenliga players are among the strongest and smartest in the Empire.Culture:Knowing that the Grafenliga is generally considered the best league in the Empire, the Middenheimers tend to only focus on it and the Carnivale Cup. While quite proud of the fact that the Emperor’s Cup has been won more times by Middenheim teams than any other city, that tournament is not taken as seriously by the fans, who rarely travel to Altdorf to support their fans. The Four Cities Tournament is regarded with amusement, and the best players from the Grafenliga teams are usually rested and the young prospects are tried out. In spite of this, they have still been competitive in that tournament.Nulnerliga – 6 teamsCompetition:Nuln’s league, the Nulnerliga, has two stages—group play and the knockout stage—which infuriates many Blood Bowl purists. The Group Play stage pits the teams against each other twice a season, once at each team’s stadium. Two points are awarded for a win, none for a loss. There are no ties in Nulnerliga matches, with the two teams facing off in extra time. When one team scores, the other team has one chance to score themselves. If they score, the game continues, if not, the game is finally over. At the end of the 10 game Group Play stage, the four teams with the highest point totals play each other in the knockout stage. The first and fourth place teams play each other, as do the second and third placed teams. They play up to three games, a team having to lose twice to be eliminated.

The first game of the round is played at the higher seeded team’s stadium, the second at the lower’s. The third game (if necessary) is played at the higher ranked team’s stadium. The winners of the pairings play each other in a single game played at a stadium that rotates around the six Nuln Blood Bowl stadiums.Teams:The best team in the city would be Imperial Gunners BBC, with Alder BBC being their closest rivals. While Adler actually has a slight advantage in head-to-head competition during the Group Play stage (68 wins to the Gunners’ 62), The Gunners have the decided advantage in Knockout Stage play (28 wins to Adler’s 12). Other teams in the Nulnerliga are: Nuln Helmklub BBC, Nulner Bierhaus BBC, Nulner Bowlers BBC, and Westenmarkt BBC.Style:The Nulnerliga plays a flashy and dynamic breed of Blood Bowl designed to excite the already rabid fans. They refuse to use the term Capital City Offense, but many of the better teams use a wide open passing game that mixes with bone-crushing hits and hard running. Nuln players are known to be the dirtiest in the league, often breaking the already liberal rules of Blood Bowl in order to gain even the slightest competitive edge.Culture:Even though there are other cities with larger leagues and more prestigious competitions, Nuln Blood Bowl teams have an air about them that they are the end-all and be-all of Imperial Blood Bowl. Their fans are the most notoriously violent hooligans in all of the Empire, the players the most arrogant, and managers the most insufferable. As a result, other teams hate playing them. As their fans will no doubt remind you, the Imperial Gunners BBC has won more Emperor’s Cups than any other team in Imperial history. And because no Nulnerliga team has ever won a Four Cities Tournament, they will also be quick to disparage that competition. Without a doubt, the winner of the Nulnerliga is held in much higher esteem than the winner of the Nuln Emperor’s Cup Qualifying Tournament. The rabidity of the Nuln fans is such that failure to make the Knockout Stage will usually result in the sacking of a manager.Pfeildorf Blood Bowl Tournaments – 4 teamsCompetition:Pfeildorf’s Blood Bowl league is a fractured and chaotic place to be. Every two or three years, they change the structure of the leage and how it is played. It recently changed from the standard table (where each team would play each other six times) to a confusing series of mini-tournaments. For ten consecutive weeks, the four teams play two games each week, the winners of the first game playing each other in the second. The winner of the second game gets five points and the loser gets three points. The winner of the game between the first game losers receives one point. The following week, the team that won both games plays the team that lost both games. At the end of the ten weeks, the highest point total wins the league.Teams:There is remarkable parity in the teams from Pfeildorf. Blitzenklub BBC and Pfeildorfer Hammers BBC are marginally better than Durbheim BBC and Kupferklub Pfeildorf BBC, but for the most part each year the tournament belongs to the hungriest team that year.Style:In a league as fractured as Pfeildorf’s, there really is no standard style of play. Even within a team, there is precious little consistency. Teamwork is not in large quantities here, with individual play dictating the games. They frequently degenerate into brawls, often involving the fans as well.Culture:As can be expected, Blood Bowl is not a gentleman’s game in Pfeildorf. Most of the people who go to the games are in it for the rough play, and all it takes is a player crashing into the stands or a stray throw hitting a spectator to get fans invading the pitch. There is no official deterrent to any of this outside of the fact that most Blood Bowlers are fairly hard men and the invading fan will usually lose. Any fan that manages to beat up a Blood Bowler is offered a job.Talabheimer Blood Bowl League – 5 teamsComeptition:Talabheim’s league is a straightforward league with each team playing each other four times for a sixteen game season. Winning teams receive two points, losing teams none, with one in the case of a draw.Teams:Bootslagerplatz BBC has a slightly more storied past than its closest rival Bierstube BBC. On occasion, Talagaad BBC or Sprotau BBC will make a surprise run at the championship. Talabheimer Schwertzklub BBC considers any season where they don’t finish last a success.Style:

Talabheim teams play a remarkably balanced style of Blood Bowl, most teams as comfortable throwing the ball as running with it. While the fundamentals of each team are solid, there is very little flair shown by the Blood Bowl teams of Talabheim. They get their jobs done with little in the way of trick plays and on-field theatrics.Culture:True to the plain style of play, the players themselves are probably the quietest, most modest Blood Bowlers in the Empire. While there are certainly some larger personalities in the game, they prefer to let their actions speak for themselves. Normally, when a Talabheim Blood Bowler makes too much of a stink about things, he is first ostracized by his peers, followed by the fans if he keeps it up. The fans themselves, however, are your typical Blood Bowl yobs.Wissenburg Competitive Blood Bowl – 4 teamsCompetition:Wissenburg breaks its competition into two different sections. The Winter and Summer Competitions are each nine games long, where each team plays each other once at home and away. The extra game against each competitor is at home during one competition and away during the other. Each team gets three points for a win, one for a draw, none for a loss. The points leader at the end of the ninth game is the Competition champion. If the same team wins both the Winter and Summer competitions, then they are the Wissenburg Champions. Otherwise, the two champions play each other in a home-and-away series, the combined scores of both games determining who the victor is.Teams:Ewigklub Wissenburg BBC and Wissenburger Hammers BBC are, by far, the most competitive teams in Wissenburg. In 85 seasons of Wissenburg Blood Bowl, only on five occasions did one of the other teams, Dotternbach BBC or Wissenlander BBC, ever win either the Winter or Summer Competitions. Only once, back in 2488, when Wissenlander miraculously overcame a 4-0 deficit in the first game to beat Ewigklub 6-1 in Ewigklub’s own stadium, did one of the minnows win the whole tournament.Style:As can be expected, Ewigklub and the Hammers play much more complicated schemes with more flair than the rest. The Hammers prefer a stong running game, while Ewigklub has stuck with the Capital City Offense. Dotternbach and Wissenlander each play a solid, if simple and unspectacular, style of physical play, focusing on blocking the other team and stifling the tempo of the game.Culture:Wissenburg’s Blood Bowl culture is very loud, with the most elaborate songs in the Empire. The lung capacity of Wissenburg fans amazes everyone, far and wide. It is said that teams who come to Wissenburg for friendlies cannot even hear themselves think. Wolfenburger Blood Bowl Association – 5 teamsCompetition:Wolfenburg plays a straightforward table of five teams playing each other four times a season. The competing teams get two points for a win, one for a tie, and none for a loss. At the end of the season, the highest point total wins the league.Teams:While most of the teams in Wolfenburg would be competitive throughout the Empire, all roads to the Association Championship go through Wendorf BBC, one of the Empire’s top teams. Grunacleren BBC is marginally better than the rest—Edelklub Wolfenburg BBC, Geissen BBC, and Lagerplatz BBC.Style:The Wolfenburg style of play is fairly typical of most of the Empire. The better teams tend to vary the offense a bit, also imposing more technical blocking schemes. The weaker teams, as usual, favor a physical style which slows down the game and gives the underdog a better chance of an upset.Culture:In a typical Imperial fashion, the Wolfenburg fans tend to vociferously support their teams, scuffling with rivals on a regular basis. They are also very united in supporting Wolfenburg teams when they play teams from other places.Wurtbader Blood Bowler’s Guild – 5 teamsCompetition:The WBBG is, like most Blood Bowl leagues, a straightforward table. The Wurtbad seasons is a bit longer than most, with each team playing each other eight times (four times home and four times away), for a total of 32 games. Teams receive three points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a loss. The overall points champion is the winner of the Guild Trophy.

Teams:Biberhof BBC is the most prominent team in all of Wurtbad and is the perennial team to beat. The rest of the teams in the league would do well in most leagues throughout the Empire. They are Kampfbahn BBC, Oberwil BBC, Soldatklub Wurtbad BBC, and Stirlander BBC.Style:Due to the touristy nature of Wurtbad, the city’s teams tend towards flair and panache when they play. If given the choice between a spectacular play of risk or a safe play, they will go for the high-risk play. As a result, the games tend to be high-scoring events, with frequent lead changes.Culture:The flashiness of the game on the field also translates into a party in the terraces above it. The biggest thing the Wurtbad fans are known for are the bands. Every team has a number of small bands that blare out music for their team. The fans sing along and wave countless flags and banners. Alcohol flows freely, and generally so does the cheer until it looks like one of the teams will certainly lose. At that point, the violence usually breaks out. Sometimes the bands will play songs for the fights when it suits them.

Non-League Blood BowlWhile the remaining Imperial Blood Bowl Clubs do not play in any organized leagues, they are usually still active, visiting nearby cities and playing friendly tournaments and one-off matches. These competitions not held regularly, coming nowhere near the sophistication of the Imperial Blood Bowl Leagues. As a result, the quality of play is usually very poor. Usually the worst team in many of the leagues will regularly beat a Non-League team in play. The Non-League teams do occasionally shine when they play in some of the cup tournaments (The Carnivale Cup and Emporer’s Cup are the only ones that usually have Non-League teams in them). Unfortunately, since Delberz BBC’s shock Carnivale Cup in 2502, no Non-League team has ever won anything of note. Beating a League team is typically the defining moment for the club for decades to come.Averland Non-League TeamsGrenzstadt BBC, GrenzstadtHuhnerhof BBC, StreissenPfungzig BBC, PfungzigStreissen BBC, StreissenHochland Non-League TeamsKrudenwald BBC, KrudenwaldSelmigerholz BBC, KrudenwaldKemperbad Non-League TeamsKemperbad BBC, KemperbadLagerhaus BBC, KemperbadOrtsrand BBC, KemperbadMiddenland Non-League TeamsAhlenhof BBC, AhlenhofDelberz BBC, DelberzMootland Non-League TeamsEicheschatten BBC, EicheschattenEicheschatten BBC is a unique situation. They are, without a doubt, the worst Blood Bowl team in history. Composed entirely of Halflings, they show up every year to the Emperor’s Cup and lose by enormous margins. Still, the fans love them, both for their plucky spirit as well as for the food that the Mootland fans bring along and sell at the tournament.Nordland Non-League TeamsDeiterschafen BBC, DeiterschafenNorden BBC, NordenSalzenmund Heimklub BBC, SalzenmundSalzenmundgardt BBC, SalzenmundStadtpark BBC, SalzenmundOstermark Non-League TeamsAlumnat BBC, Bechafen

Bechafen BBC, BechafenKriegeriach BBC, BechafenOstland Non-League TeamsFerlangen BBC, FerlangenSalkalten BBC, SalkaltenReikland Non-League TeamsAltgarten BBC, DunkelburgAuerswald BBC, AuerswaldBlack Fire BBC, BogenhafenBogenhafen BBC, BogenhafenDunkelburg BBC, DunkelburgEilhart BBC, EilhartGrissenwald BBC, GrissenwaldGrunburg BBC, GrunburgHahnbrandt BBC, AuerswaldHelmgart BBC, HelmgartHolthusen BBC, HolthusenSattleplatz BBC, SchilderheimSchattenal BBC, DunkelburgSchilderheim BBC, SchilderheimStahlklub Grissenwald BBC, GrissenwaldUbersreik BBC, UbersreikSylvania Non-League TeamsHundham BBC, WaldenhofWaldenhof BBC, WaldenhofTalabecland Non-League TeamsHazelhof BBC, KrugenheimKrugenheim BBC, Krugenheim

The Blood Bowl Challenge CupsAltdorfer Cup– 16 teams (all 10 Altdorf teams, plus six invited from around the Empire)Competitors:All ten teams from the Altdorf league take part in this cup. In addition, six teams are selected from throughout the Empire to attend each year. Because teams from Altdorf cannot participate in the Graf’s Carnivale Cup, teams from Middenheim or Middenland are never invited to the Altdorfer Cup. Typically, if a team from outside of the city wins the Cup, they will be invited without fail for the next four years. Otherwise, elite teams are invited from other leagues. The most recent Reikland representative to the Emperor’s Cup is invited as well.Structure:Altdorf teams are drawn at random against the visiting teams. The remaining Altdorf teams are drawn against each other. This process is repeated each round.Four Cities Tournament (Challenge Cup) – 4 teams (the champions of the Altdorf, Middenheim, Nuln, and Talabheim leagues)Graf’s Carnivale Cup (Challenge Cup) – 16 teams (all nine Middenheim teams and all seven Middenland teams)

The Emperor’s CupThe Emperor’s Cup is the overall most popular competition in Imperial Blood Bowl because, in theory, any team in the Empire can win it. The disparity in talent and resources among the teams means that the bigger teams from the bigger leagues tend to win it. Still, every year a miracle occurs on the hard packed soil of the Blood Bowl Pit and a minnow claims the scalp of one of the major powers. Everyone remembers the “Cinderella” run of Krugenheim

BBC in 2498, when they stormed through the Talabecland Qualifying Tournament, upsetting every team that they played and earning a spot in the Emperor’s Cup where they continued to surprise, making their way to the final where reality caught up with them and they were crushed by Adler BBC (largely because in the first few plays of the game, Adler’s Helmut Potvin managed to cripple the three best players on Krugenheim’s team—leading to the cheer “Potvin Sucks!” every time a team from Talabecland plays Adler in any competition.Emperor’s Cup (Challenge Cup) – 32 teams (every Qualifying Tournament Champion, every League Champion, and the previous two Emperor’s Cup Winners that did not qualify)Altdorf (Qualifying Tournament) – 10 teamsAverland (Qualifying Tournament) – 9 teamsHochland (Qualifying Tournament) – 6 teamsKemperbad (Qualifying Tournament) – 3 teamsMiddenheim (Qualifying Tournament) – 9 teamsMiddenland (Qualifying Tournament) – 7 teamsMootland (Qualifying Tournament) – 1 teamEicheschatten BBC is the only team in the Moot, therefore they always qualify for the Emperor’s Cup. They have more appearances in the tournaments and without a doubt the most losses. They have never won a game in the finals.Nordland (Qualifying Tournament) – 5 teamsNuln (Qualifying Tournament) – 6 teamsOstermark (Qualifying Tournament) – 3 teamsOstland (Qualifying Tournament) – 7 teamsReikland (Qualifying Tournament) – 16 teamsStirland (Qualifying Tournament) – 5 teamsSudenland (Qualifying Tournament) – 4 teamsSylvania (Qualifying Tournament) – 2 teamsTalabecland (Qualifying Tournament) – 6 teamsTalabheim (Qualifying Tournament) – 5 teamsWissenland (Qualifying Tournament) – 4 teams