entry 009 · jul 16 2026 · rabbit hole ⚽

The Climb

a complete record · est. 1930

Every nation that ever entered a men's World Cup, printed as a river that climbs toward a single champion at the summit. Eighty-five countries start at the base. The river narrows at every round. One reaches the top.

Colour by

1930—2022

hover to trace a path · click for the printed record

How to read it

Each strand is one nation in one tournament. It enters at the base and rises as far as that team got: group stage, last 16, last 8, and so on, until, for twenty-two strands across history, it reaches the champion at the very top. The width of a nation's block is how many times it has appeared. Press play to watch the cup take form, one World Cup at a time. Pick any year to light only the rounds that tournament actually had.

The World Cup changed shape many times, and the river shows it rather than hiding it. Select a year, or press play, and the rounds that did not exist that year fade out, so the cup's shape shifts as the format does. The second group stage ran only from 1974 to 1982. The round of 16 means the round with sixteen teams left: the whole tournament in the early knockouts of 1934 and 1938, and the gate into the knockout bracket after the groups from 1986 on. And in 1950 there was no final at all: the title was decided by a round-robin, so Uruguay's strand reaches the summit through its own channel, bypassing the knockout ladder entirely.

Kobalto, Koby's mascot, reading a book out loud

One more climb, read aloud…

When I'm not plotting a rabbit hole like this one, I build Koby. It turns ebooks you already own into audiobooks, and it can even read comics and describe charts out loud. It's free to try.

🎧 Start listening free