Country Cup 1

The first edition of the **Country Cup** took place in June 2018. It served as a European qualifier event for the **Universal Cup**. It took place in Hamburg, Germany following its victory in the bidding phase, in which Belgium won in the first half rounds.

The competition was won by Czech Republic, who defeated runner-ups Ukraine. Hungary came third place and Albania came forth.

 Concedes

The CCU announced on July 17, 2018, that the next edition would have a 16-team knockout phase, instead of the current 32. However, it was not specified whether or not this would result in a participation limit for the competition.

## Bidding

This edition would be the only to feature bidding, as the winners of the current tournament would be given the right to host the next. In case they would decline this right, it would be passed to the runners-up, and so on.

Controversially, Scotland placed 2nd in the first round but dropped to 4th place losing 1 voter and not gaining any, for no specific reason.

## Participating countries

58 countries confirmed their participation. Vatican City were the only country in the CCU to not take part, besides Kosovo, which their full membership status was not decided yet. However, this number was lowered to 57 following an incident with the Belorussian team, which led to its withdrawal.

* Albania
* Algeria
* Andorra
* Armenia
* Austria
* Azerbaijan
* Belgium
* Bosnia–Herzegovina
* Bulgaria
* Croatia
* Cyprus
* Czech Republic
* Denmark
* England
* Egypt
* Estonia
* Finland
* France
* Georgia
* Germany
* Greece
* Hungary
* Iceland
* Ireland
* Italy
* Jordan
* Kazakhstan
* Latvia
* Lebanon
* Libya
* Liechtenstein
* Lithuania
* Luxembourg
* Macedonia
* Malta
* Moldova
* Monaco
* Montenegro
* Morocco
* Netherlands
* Northern Ireland
* Norway
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Russia
* Serbia
* Scotland
* Slovakia
* Slovenia
* Spain
* San Marino
* Sweden
* Switzerland
* Tunisia
* Ukraine
* Wales

### **Other countries**

* Belarus: Originally, the country was confirmed. Due to unforeseen circumstances, it announced its withdrawal after the confirmation period ended.
* Bosnia–Herzegovina: BHRT announced that B&H would not participate, due to ongoing financial issues. However, after receiving sponsorship from several commercial companies, BHRT retracted this statement.
* Vatican City: VR stated that participating was not in their plans.

## Format

The tournament will open with a group stage consisting of 19 groups of three countries, with the winning countries progressing from each group to a knockout tournament starting with a round of 32 teams. The runner-ups of each group will qualify to a play-off, alongside the highest placing third place. 18 countries were to be eliminated by this stage.

The groups were allocated randomly. In case the top 6 rules for tiebreakers are still tied, a rematch is played, between the two teams in question. Unlike other group matches, this game would go to extra time and penalties, in order to determine the winner.

## Qualifiers

### 1st

* Kazakhstan
* Romania
* Estonia
* Jordan
* Serbia
* Hungary
* Iceland
* Andorra
* Czech Republic
* Netherlands
* Spain
* Liechtenstein
* Albania
* Norway
* Lebanon
* Georgia
* Slovakia
* Northern Ireland
* Russia

### 2nd

The play-off duels were randomized.

* Algeria
* Ukraine
* England
* France
* Bulgaria
* Wales
* Latvia
* Lithuania
* Austria
* Azerbaijan
* Monaco
* Switzerland
* Malta
* Finland
* Montenegro
* Egypt
* Italy
* Armenia
* Sweden
* Denmark (3rd)

## Play-offs

Unlike in the group stages, all matches allowed extra time and penalties.

### Second round

The second round also featured extra-time and penalties, if necessary. The duels were randomly drawn. The top 6 countries of the play-offs qualified to this round.

## Knockout stage

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