[CaptainObvious]

Wildcards:
The 10 2nd place and top 2 3rd place are randomly seeded to play each other. Winners qualify for the last 6 World Cup spots.

Mexico 12, India 3
These teams missing winning their groups on tiebreakers to #1/#2 ranked in the world. Mexico gets 9 in the 4th. #27 India eliminated with only losses to #2 USA, #18 Mexico.

Iran 4, Taiwan 3
#67 Taiwan was a surprise 2nd after winning a 4-way tie in head-to-head advantage.

England 9, South Korea 6
The only favorites who didn't win their groups. 12 innings. SK leaves bases loaded bottom 11th, 12th.

Cameroon 6, Indonesia 2
#39 Indonesia messed up #5 South Korea's chances earlier.

Wales 16, Dominican Republic 2.
Wales was unranked, got 2nd on 4-way tie. Dominican Republic out on losses to Germany, Wales.
Wales is suspected of cheating, as only a few of their players actually have any professional playing history. Especially suspicious are unknown veteran superstars SP Danny Lain, CL Lee Turvill, 1B Joel Kimber (ages 32, 34, 32).) [Translation: I messed up when creating the league and some fictional players were generated. I thought I managed to retire them all, but missed the ones on the play-in teams. Wales happened to get a lot of good ones. Israel also benefited greatly from this issue.]

Spain 2, Australia 1
Australia eliminated only on losses to #6 Italy, #13 Spain.




World Cup Groups:
6 games: 1 home+away with each team. Top 2 from each group advance.
Top 4 seeded to different groups, then next 5-8 are seeded. Then 9+10 are placed randomly. Then the 6 wildcards fill the other spots.

One easily noticeable difference from qualifying is that almost all of the teams left have full rosters and bullpens. Wales only has 2 SP and 19 players total, so they stick out.


Group A:
#10 France
#28 Ukraine
#21 Iran
#13 Spain

Probably the weakest group based on historic rankings, but they all have good pitching. They ranked 1st, 6th, 7th, 10th in RA overall in the main qualifying round. Spain and Iran both came out of group 6 (Spain won 3-0).
Only France has made it past group stage before.


Group B:
#6 Italy
#7 Germany
#18 Mexico
#4 England

Is this the group of death? Maybe in a different sport. Also, see group D. But this is close.


Group C:
#8 South Africa
#3 Japan
#12 Nigeria
#29 Cameroon

All 3 African teams ended up in the same group. South Africa and Cameroon were both in group 7 in qualifying (South Africa won, 6-0.) Probably the same old Japan + South Africa moving on.


Group D:
#5 Canada
#2 USA
#1 China
NR Wales

Something is wrong here.
How did this happen? China lost its first game to Zimbabwe, who ended up last in the group due to having only 3 pitchers. USA lost to Venezuela, who finished 4th after tiebreakers. Canada is the actual #1 seed of the group, having gone 7-0 and scoring 135 runs in 60 innings. Then there's Wales, the unranked team with a set of mysterious unknown veterans.