It's crazy to think it was just five weeks ago that we began this tournament. On the morning of Monday, July 6, we announced the complete field of 16 national teams and 80 players; that evening, we held our selection show and revealed who was bound for what group. At that time, all the teams were 0-0, and all were wide-eyed and optimistic about their chances. Everyone was alive and well in their quest for global Scrabble supremacy.

A lot has happened in five weeks.

We've seen blowouts; we've seen nailbiters. We've seen teams experience the joy of victory and the agony of defeat. We've seen triple-triples and Q-sticks. We've seen dazzling 9-letter bingos and hideous 2-letter phonies. All in all, we've seen 750 games of Scrabble, and we've seen our original field of 16 contenders whittled down to just two.

This coming weekend, one of those two teams will win the whole thing.

Your finalists for this Virtual World Cup are India and the United States. Both teams have come a long way to reach this point, and both are now just 13 wins away from being world champions. This week's post will be a deep dive into the two finalists - who they are, how they got here and how they can win the title once and for all.

INDIA

Match record:

4-1 (beat Malaysia and Thailand in pool play, lost to the United Kingdom; overcame Australia in quarterfinals and Canada in semifinals)

Game record:

67-58, -201 spread

Other stats:

438-440 average game score, 283 bingos, 122 blanks, 9 phonies

Starting lineup:

Aditya Iyengar (18-7), Nakul Prabhu (14-11), Udayan Grover (12-13), Akshay Bhandarkar (10-10), Sherwin Rodrigues (10-15)

How they got here:

It's been something of a Cinderella run for the team from India. On paper, you wouldn't have expected them to be here - they were the No. 3 seed in their original group for pool play, ranked behind the UK and Malaysia, with only two players on the roster (Akshay and Sherwin) who have achieved high expert status in WESPA. But this team has proved far deeper than it looked on paper - and in fact, it's often been the other three Indian players who have led the way! India ended up finishing first in Group A, then snuck past both of their playoff opponents with 13-12 victories, making the final by the absolute slimmest of margins.

Their semifinal win, over Canada on Saturday, was a thrilling one. The Canadians started out the match just barely in the lead, 8-7 with two rounds to go, but India began to turn the tables in round 4. Aditya had an amazing victory over Canada's Dean Saldanha, pulling it out late when he found the 9-letter bingo of ENLIgHT(EN) with a rack of EHILNT? on a tight board; three of the other four Indians won as well, giving India an 11-9 lead.

Canada mounted a comeback in the final round, eventually closing the gap to 12-12, and everything came down to a battle of the top seeds, Akshay and Canada's Evan Berofsky. Akshay bingoed twice early and led by 100 for much of the game, but Evan fought to the very end. An improbable bingo of RIMPLING in the pre-endgame put him within striking distance, and with a difficult endgame rack of LLLOSSU, he desperately hoped for a bingo out like NOUSELLS or ULTISOLS. It wasn't in the tiles, and Akshay held on. India is through to the final!

UNITED STATES

Match record:

4-1 (beat the Philippines and New Zealand in pool play, lost to Ireland; overcame Singapore in quarterfinals and Pakistan in semifinals)

Game record:

76-49, +2952 spread

Other stats:

447-423 average game score, 286 bingos, 130 blanks, 17 phonies

Starting lineup:

Will Anderson (18-7), Dave Wiegand (15-10), Austin Shin (14-11), Conrad Bassett-Bouchard (13-7), Jesse Day (11-9)

How they got here:

If India is the David in this matchup, then the U.S. is the Goliath (which is ironic because one of their players is named David, but whatever). The Americans entered this tournament as the top overall seed, with an average WESPA rating of 2026, and indeed, they've lived up to that billing. They're 4-1 in their matches, just the same as India, but they've put up monster numbers along the way - their game record, spread and bingo average are easily the best in the tournament. The U.S. won Group D in pool play without too much difficulty, and they beat Singapore rather lopsidedly in the first round of the playoffs.

Sunday against Pakistan was another story, though. The two semifinalists proved extraordinarily evenly matched, and their playoff battle went down to the wire. Dave was the hero of the match for the Americans - after struggling to 10-10 in his first 20 games this tournament, he was an absolute world-beater in the semis, going 5-0 with a comical 17 bingos (PLOTTED, FOREMAN, REC(LI)NeRS, AIRINESS, TOYLAND, AGENESIA, PRELATE, PAGODITE, COLEADER, HANDISMS, PRANCES, ABLATED, TEDIOUS, IMPERIL, INERTIAE, MINUTIAL and UNLETTED). Dave kept Team USA in while many of his teammates struggled early - the U.S. started out down 3-2, then 6-4, before starting to battle back.

Eventually it was 10-10 going into the final round, meaning we'd have 5 games, winner take all, for the final spot. Dave won quickly, but Hassan Hadi Khan and Waseem Khatri each won their games for Pakistan, putting the U.S. in a 12-11 hole and forcing Austin and Jesse both to win their final games. In clutch fashion, they did. Austin was in a tough battle late, struggling with a rack of AEIIOOS, but he played off two vowels and drew ISOLATES at just the right time to ensure a hard-fought victory. Jesse, meanwhile turned a close game into a blowout with two heavy bingos at the end, PRECISE for 90 and CYANIDS for 77. When the dust settled, it was a 13-12 victory for Team USA. They are through.

VIRTUAL WORLD CUP FINAL

Who:

India vs. United States

Where:

The Collins Coalition Twitch channel (twitch.tv/cocoscrabble)

When:

Saturday, August 15, 3 p.m. GMT - this is 8 a.m. in San Francisco, 11 a.m. in New York and 8:30 p.m. in Mumbai

This is it! We have our two finalists. They're two very different teams - one the underdog who battled their way here from the No. 3 seed in their original group, and the other that entered as the top overall squad and has been characteristically dominant. But both teams have earned the right to be here, and now there are just 25 games of Scrabble to be played! Either team can most definitely win.

I'm not in the prediction business, but I'll say what I've been saying all along in these playoff matches: I hope we get a close match with a dramatic finish. And given how well these two teams have played so far, I think we'll get one.

I'm hoping this final match will make for a fantastic viewing experience on Twitch. Our audience has steadily grown each week, reaching about 450 unique viewers for each of the two semifinals, and we're hoping for an even bigger show for this final match. This should be a great finale to a great tournament! We hope you'll join us as we prepare to crown our world champions.