1 Luke Littler
2 Gian van Veen
3 Luke Humphries
4 Jonny Clayton (UP 1)
5 James Wade (UP 1)
6 Gerwyn Price (DOWN 2)
7 Josh Rock
8 Ryan Searle
9 Danny Noppert
10 Gary Anderson
11 Wessel Nijman
12 Chris Dobey
13 Stephen Bunting
14 Michael van Gerwen
15 Nathan Aspinall
16 Luke Woodhouse (UP 2)
17 Ross Smith (DOWN 1)
18 Jermaine Wattimena (DOWN 1)
19 Krzysztof Ratajski
20 Martin Schindler
Yeah, not really much doing. Smudger unlucky to go down one despite a Pro Tour win, but Woodhouse did much more. Price hasn't picked up anything since April, so Clayton making a Pro Tour semi and Wade just turning up puts them above him.
We've got a bit of a lull now, so let's ignore the Nordic Darts Exhibition and go straight on to the second most important World Cup of the month, the Frankfurt Pairs Exhibition. Here I'm going to do a tier list, broken down by the following:
S - should reach the final
A - should greatly exceed expectations
B - might do better than expected
C - probably par for the course
D - will likely underachieve
F - dumpster fire making up the numbers
This is all going to be mostly in comparison to the team's seeding, or lack thereof. So bear that in mind before I shit on your country.
(1) England (Littler/Humphries) - This is by far the strongest team ever compiled for this event, if you want to make some arguments about some of the Taylor/Lewis or MvG/Barney sorts of teams, you can do, but I'd disagree. Based on seasonal scoring, Littler is top by a point from Price (who isn't here), who's second from Humphries by less than two tenths of a point, who's nearly two points ahead of the next best player. Their edge is huge, which'll make it all the more funny when they lose their first game again. Tier - S
(2) Netherlands (van Veen/van Gerwen) - For some reason I thought van Gerwen was missing this one. Which thankfully he isn't, as if he missed it, you still wouldn't get the strongest Dutch player there is right now, as Noppert is third ranked. van Gerwen is at least second, but there's another two players (Doets, DvD) before you even get to van Veen in the Dutch rankings. They're doing enough that they should do OK, but as the number 2 seed, do I feel confident in them reaching the final? Not really, but with everyone else looking pretty weak as well, they might. Tier - C
(3) Northern Ireland (Rock/Gurney) - The defending champions at least have some sort of chance. Rock's somewhat reeling from a disaster of a PL debut, and has dropped a tad, while it seems like I lay Gurney every week who's scoring under 90. They're clearly not as good as the Dutch are, but with the standards being so bad in this tournament as a general rule, I can't rule them out going deep again. Tier - C
(4) Scotland (Anderson/Menzies) - This is a tough one to call. On one hand you've got Anderson, who still maintains elite levels of play and is probably the strongest non-Englishman who's turning up, then you've got Menzies, who's making a debut here and flips between brilliant and crazy, often within the same match. Think it depends a lot on which Cammy turns up, if he's decent this could well be par for the course (as even if he does turn up, I can't see them beating England), if he doesn't then I'm not sure how much Anderson would be able to carry the team. At least it's not Wright that's here, but frankly Soots is playing better now. Tier - C
(5) Germany (Schindler/Pietreczko) - Oh boy. Schindler, while not exactly playing badly, is a fair bit off the level that saw him pick up Euro Tours, while Pietreczko seems to be struggling with some sort of dartitis like thing, on occasions it looks like he's worked out something to manage it to some degree, on others, not so much. Even when he's winning, he doesn't look good. With the home crowd, they'll get some help, but Springer and Clemens are scoring better than Pietreczko is, heck, Gruellich, Weber, Hofkens and Gotthardt all are. I can see scenarios where they don't get out of the group, and if they do, there's probably more bad draws than good ones. Tier - D
Philippines (Toylo/Nebrida) - I'll do the teams in the group with each of the seed to keep things a bit compartmentalised. This is always going to be a competitive nation, arguably the strongest in Asia, and you've got the 2/3 on the Asian Tour rankings, both of whom have a lot of experience on the big stage at this point in their careers. I'd like the numbers to be a bit better than they are, but this is totally a team that could cause upsets. Tier - B
New Zealand (Tata/Robb) - This is a pairing that feels like it should always do better than it actually does. They've had plenty of players who I've thought might make the breakthrough to tour card level (and holding it before anyone mentions Puha), but it's just not happened although I think Robb has that upside. They just don't play enough darts outside of New Zealand to really get the miles in at a competitive level, which at least financially is understandable. Tough draw. Tier - D
(6) Belgium (de Decker/van den Bergh) - Oh my god what an absolute shitshow this might be. de Decker has fallen off a cliff completely since winning his major and is nowhere near the Matchplay, despite being twentieth in the world and getting a huge number of Euro Tour shots as a result, while van den Bergh is even worse and is somehow in real danger of losing his tour card. Neither is scoring over 90 per turn this year, the best Belgian by a mile (Huybrechts) is below both in the rankings so isn't here, I do wish they should change the rules so that they just pick the top player by rights and they pick their partner, christ DvdB is less than a tenth of a point per turn ahead of Vandenbogaerde who's done basically nothing since having his card reprieved. If anything, Baetens is stronger than both of these and he doesn't even have a card right now. Tier - D
Hong Kong (Leung/Lee) - This is a fun pairing who got out of the groups last time (admittedly maybe the easiest group you could reasonably construct) and then beat Sweden in a bit of an upset. They've both won on the Asian Tour this year, and while like the Philippines I'd like a bit more in terms of numbers, they have a knack of getting the job done. Which they very well might. Tier - B
Slovenia (Pratnemer/Bazicek) - These make a return after forever after Benjamin won his tour card after looking decent on the WDF etc circuits for some time, and he's looked competent enough once getting there without doing anything to make us really think he'll keep his card right now (he's outside the worlds race). The other guy I know little about, other than doing a quick google, seeing he played Q-School, and seeing that the average there started with a six. Well that's that then. I mean they have a tour card holder so I'm not sure this is dumpster fire level, but it's going to need Pratnemer to have the carry of his life. Tier - D
(7) Wales (Clayton/Kenny) - I mean if Price turned up then this would be S tier without any thought, but if Price turned up they'd get a first round bye, so here they are at 7. Clayton has had a great Premier League, and is in the top ten of players here very comfortably, and that should see them well enough. Kenny is up with him, and he's OK but not having the greatest of years, with his scoring down well around the mid 80's and results outside of the worlds race. Clearly this is a step down over Price, but it's a huge step down over Owen as well who's outperforming Kenny by miles but is behind him by like one Pro Tour win. Shame, with Owen I'd put this at A-tier, but all I can say for what we've got is that they've got basically no chance of getting knocked out in the groups, and the quarters, draw dependent, looks like a possibility with at least a puncher's chance. Tier - B
Lithuania (Labanauskas/Barauskas) - This is the same team they've had for years, and is another one alright, one not so much pairing. Darius is pretty solid, but they've just not been able to get anyone close to him, and if Barauskas is still the second best player they've got, it's a problem given he's not even in the top 32 of the Nordic/Baltic tour. They're probably the stronger of the non-seeds in this group, but way, way off the top one. So second looks obvious on paper and very hard to argue against. Tier - C
Thailand (Ouamuapa/Rodman) - These are back after a couple of years away, and it's a whole new team that I know absolutely nothing about. Ouamuapa had seemingly one Asian Tour quarter last season where he looked bad. Rodman I have zero on. If you combined their Asian Tour winnings this year, they wouldn't even break the top 80. Nice that you're back, but thanks for coming. Tier - F
(8) Ireland (O'Connor/Mansell) - So Mickey has switched from north to south, and got himself back in the team, this being at the expense of Barry, who's scoring better than Mansell and getting just as good a set of results this season. So harsh on Keane and yet another one that isn't picking their strongest side, but Mansell can hardly be described as bad (and seems like the perfect sort of player that would disrupt even more than pairs affects quick players) and in O'Connor they have someone who is performing at a very high level. The group looks easy, and I think I prefer their chances out of any of seeds 5-7 to get a good run going. Sure, it's draw dependent, but they have a real good shot of outperforming their seeding, and ought to at least match it. Tier - B
Singapore (Lim/Tan) - Lim we know everything about already, while Tan is here for a second year and not doing dreadfully on the Asian Tour (at least in terms of results, on the rare times he's got deep the numbers aren't really convincing). This looks like another team like Lithuania that given the group, a 1-1 projection seems extremely easy to make and one that should be matched a huge chunk of the time. Tier - C
Uganda (Ocheng/Said) - Always cool to see new nations getting represented. Always also cool to try to work out who the hell these people are. Quick look at the small amount of African data I can find is not pretty. Will be a nice experience, but incredibly tough to see them getting a win, heck, might be tough to see them getting more than a couple of legs. Tier - F
(9) Poland (Ratajski/Bialecki) - Now this is what we're talking about. Ratajski is playing at a hell of a strong level, scoring in the top ten of players that are at the tournament, and is actually twelfth overall in this season, while Bialecki is putting in very strong work himself, scoring just a tad under 90 and very much in the Matchplay race (he's last man out right now). We've seen Polish teams put up obscene numbers in the past, and this is a team that's got a more than manageable group with the quality and upside that there's only really a couple of teams that should seriously worry them. It's an obvious dark horse, but it is what it is. Tier - A
Portugal (Camacho/de Sousa) - Hard to know what to make of these. Jose is the obvious name but has really done little since the loss to Pietreczko at the worlds secured him losing his tour card, he does have some small Challenge Tour winnings, but it's actually below Camacho, which given what Luis did at Q-School in terms of statistics is a bit of a worry. This isn't the worst chance they'll have of getting a win, but it's not great either. Tier - D
Switzerland (Bellmont/Walpen) - These might be the better team than Portugal on paper, what with Bellmont having a card and Walpen having probably more experience at a PDC level than Camacho has, but I'm still not convinced that they're any good at this level. I kind of should say that one of them or Portugal should be C as I'm not really sure who's better, it's probably these but they could easily lose that match. Tier - D
(10) Sweden (de Graaf/Lukasiak) - It's some timing for Sweden that Jeffrey both chose to be Swedish, and also got a Pro Tour win on the eve of the tournament. He's looking extremely strong, arguably the highest level he's been at since joining the PDC, and while Lukasiak (and a lot of the other Swedes) has not really impressed, and might not be better than Tingstrom (or, for that matter, Harrysson), they all have something about them, even if levels of optimism about Swedish darts have been limited from a couple of years ago. It's a good group, and if they get a favourable knockout draw, then maybe they can do something, but I think there's more teams they'd prefer to avoid. Tier - C
South Africa (Filby/Petersen) - Hey, do you guys remember when Devon Petersen won a Euro Tour? Yeah, those were weird times. Probably fair to say that he's nowhere near that level now, and Filby's a name we've seen for a bit but is nothing special. Do they have enough to beat Mongolia? Probably. Could they do something special and beat Sweden? Maybe? If JdG wasn't playing quite as well as he is then I could perhaps see a B rating, as is, I'm guessing just middle of the road. Tier - C
Mongolia (Myagmarsuren/Lkhagvasuren) - The fun I've had with data entry noting down some of these players when they've done some decent work on the Asian Tour. They're really not doing too badly - both of these are in the top 20, and their tour averages of mid 70's isn't that horrible. Will they come in as underdogs? Sure. Will the debutants have the crowd on their side? Probably. Are they good enough that they might be able to spring a surprise win? Against who they've got, I don't hate the chances. This may look silly if they both shit the bed on a big stage debut, but there's a chance. Tier - B
(11) Australia (Heta/Leek) - The Whitlock streak is over, with Simon not having a card and Adam Leek now having one, making selection more or less automatic. Leek has been solid and maybe running a touch bad in terms of results (real good consistency score), while Heta is kind of the same, still playing very good stuff, but maybe quite not at the peak levels he has. Not far off though, any team with a top 20 player (if you want to argue Heta isn't any more, be my guest) and a competent enough card holder as support has somewhat of a shot. Damon's right next to Clayton in the scoring and Leek's right above Kenny, so why wouldn't we think they might outperform? The group, to be sure, is a minefield, but get through that and who knows. It's only the group that doesn't make me want to put them higher. Tier - B
USA (Sevada/Buntz) - The US reverts to having a competitive team for the first time in a few years, can't blame van Dongen for having turned up to collect a pay check (as they would spell it, and also seemingly still use, remarkably) but the unfortunate combination of him and Lauby, who for my money is worse than either of Adam or Stowe, left them looking awful. Now they have no card holders so are using I guess the CDC rankings, and likely have the strongest team they have. Maybe Spellman has an argument. I don't really know what the expectation is here. I don't think either of them are worse than Leek is. Would only take Heta to have a little bit of an off day that any result is on the table. As this tier says "might", I'm fine with it. Tier - B
Canada (Long/Cameron) - A vastly experienced team here, Long in the second year of a card where he's really not looked quite as much of a waste of a card as I feared he might have been, while Cameron continues to look alright, although with the absence of the Seniors Tour now, maybe not playing quite as much as I'd like, but still seems fine at CDC level. That match against the USA is going to be one for the ages and may well be too close to call. So I think I need to go for the same tier really. All the group might do better than expected. So someone's going to fail badly. Tier - B
(12) Czechia (Sedlacek/Gawlas) - After being the team that went for the longest without getting a win of any description, they've finally got it together, and at the start of the year were looking like a very dangerous wildcard, with Karel being in the majors races, and Adam regaining his card and starting out 2026 pretty well. Gawlas has regressed a bit and Sedlacek has faded a little bit, but being up in the seedings, maybe he can turn things around with a good steady run of Euro Tour wins. Group is alright, and if Adam can turn up, then the chances of them sneaking to back to back quarters is definitely live. Tier - B
India (Kumar/Goenka) - Nitin plays again, and on the Asian Tour is in the mid 70's. Goenka makes a debut, and is in the low 70's. It's a tough group and hard to see them getting anything out of things. They did pick up a pair of legs in both matches last year, against Czechia in one of them no less, so are showing at least a pulse, but I think given the group the projection would be finish third and not look completely terrible. They may not get that far. Tier - D
Denmark (Jorgensen/Graversen) - We have no card holders here, so we look to the SDC tour, and we get Jorgensen back after a couple of years away, and Graversen making his first start for Denmark. Graversen scrapes into the top 10 of the SDC averages, while Jorgensen is a fair bit lower down than that. That's a fair bit of a concern, the numbers are not particularly great, and while I think they're a stronger team than India, the distance is not that much and almost makes me think that I should bump India up a tier. They lost badly to Malaysia in a winner goes to knockouts game last year, and something silly could easily happen again. Tier - D
(13) Austria (Suljovic/Rodriguez) - This is a complete mix of form. Suljovic is looking as good as he has done pretty much since he was last in the top 32, having a very nice renaissance, while Rusty looks pretty cooked, not performing well at all, was one of the worst card holders last year and is no better this time. The fortunate thing is that the group is manageable, and Mensur in current form should counteract Rusty in current form enough that they get out of it, but would need a godlike draw to do better than that. Tier - C
China (Zhan/Zong) - Always tough to know what to expect from these. Zong is the strongest player by miles, and didn't really look out of place at the worlds, while Zhan has played a little bit of Asian Tour, and may not be the worst player here but doesn't appear to offer a great deal at this level. It's not the worst group, they're not getting out of it, but that French team isn't all that so maybe, just maybe, they can do something of note here. But probably not. Tier - C
France (Tricole/Thuillier) - France had a nice run three years ago, but this is a different team now, Thibault staying in as the card holder, but it's Thuillier who will partner him, having got a pretty steady series of cashes on the Challenge Tour, much more than Labre has been able to manage. He's had some flashes, and appears easily better than Zhan (heck, he might be better than Rodriguez), but I'm not sure that there's a huge difference between Zong and Tricole, who if anything doesn't score heavily enough and might be a bit overrated, seasonal numbers of under 87 really aren't retain card levels, although he's doing enough to get in the worlds so he might do it anyway. They should beat China and they should lose to Austria, but this is a weird enough group that either of those could be reversed. So I kind of have to stick them in the middle. Tier - C
(14) Latvia (Razma/Melderis) - Just like their neighbours Lithuania, this is a side that has one card holder who's pretty solid (Razma seems a good couple of steps above Labanauskas), and then one guy making up the numbers, although Melderis (and Zhukov as well) are doing more, and Valters has played his way onto the Euro Tour at least. Much like Austria, this one more or less writes itself, the draw is favourable, but I can't think of any knockout draw that would be favourable, so seems to be a case of the low seed doing what the low seed should. Tier - C
Italy (Turetta/Castelli) - A couple of years ago, Italy made the dream run to the quarter finals with Turetta and dalla Rosa, this year Michele is back, now back at Challenge Tour level where he's doing alright in the top 30 after a two year card run which was relatively uneventful. He's joined by Castelli, who's not doing too badly himself, picking up a few decent scalps and scoring alright, having wins over and more prize money there than Brian Raman and Joe Murnan for example. This isn't a great team, but it isn't a bad team, it should be easily good enough to finish second, and if Madars isn't on form, there's enough here that they have an outside chance of repeating 2024's heroics. Tier - B
Trinidad and Tobago (Balfour/Walklin) - Another debuting team, having made a surprise run through Argentina and the Bahamas in their regional qualifier. We've seen that Salate and Sweeting are no mugs, so this is a bit of an upset. 10-1 in the final sounds convincing, but only three of those legs were in as few as 18 darts, with more than half going past seven visits. Which, even in one of the better groups they could have got, simply isn't going to cut it at this level. Tier - F
(15) Croatia (Krcmar/Ljubic) - Weird team this. Krcmar isn't the card holder, but has more prize money on the order of merit than Ljubic, who's in the second year of his. Pero's down at 76 for scoring this year with a dreadful legs won-lost record, with Boris being by far the superior player and very much a threat. However, this is a nightmare of a group for them to have landed in, and if Boris isn't on peak form it's perfectly reasonable to think that they could finish bottom of the group. Krcmar probably isn't the best player in the group and I don't think Pero is better than anyone. Boris is good enough that they're not going to stink the group out, but no team is longer than 2-1 to win the group in the betting, that's how even this is. Tier - D
Japan (Sakai/Muramatsu) - Japan's team is forever interchangeable, but it's a bit of an odd one with Sakai being here for the first time, topping the Asian Tour order of merit as things stand, and Muramatsu making a first return since 2019 having been in the side for the first nine events. He's fourth in the rankings there, and both are in the top five for the averages, so it's very much a coin flip between these and the Philippines as to who's the strongest Asian team. It's hard to gauge expectations - I think I have to go with something positive simply because the seed is so weak, but the other non-seed is an absolute bastard as well. Anything could happen. Tier - B
Spain (Reyes/Justicia) - And completing the Operation Mindfuck that is anyone trying to work out who'll win this group is Spain. Cristo is back having made the worlds and then having won his card, and he looks like he's not missed a beat at all, looking arguably better than he did when he was in and around the top 32 discussion, while Justicia, a multi-time card holder himself with a win on the worlds stage, is doing steady work on the Challenge Tour with a final this season already. A good card holder with a competent partner is a combination that can do damage in this, and that's exactly what Spain have. What happens here, I don't know, I've got a 1-1-1 leg difference tiebreak cluster in my mind, and a non seed getting a win is par for the course. These are good enough that they could just win both games outright, and, with a bit of luck, get a favourable draw and make some progress in the knockouts. Tier - A
(16) Finland (Haavisto/Masalin) - Seems like both of these have qualified for a Euro Tour this year. Which is probably good enough to get seeded, a little odd as 22 countries have a card holder and Finland isn't one of them, but I guess they do some sort of two people on the OOM beats one person on the OOM thing. Haavisto is third on the SDC rankings, Masalin is down at barely a Nordic Championship qualifying spot, but is in the top ten in the averages at least. Hard to call this one, they might squeak through the group, but they could very easily lose to Norway, and Hungary are getting better all the time. Maybe they qualify, but there's a lot of permutations where they don't. Tier - D
Norway (Dekker/Sivertsen) - And we get a Scandi (no wait not Scandi) derby in this one, and this team seems a bit more polarised. Dekker has the card and tops the Nordic rankings, as well as being right on the fringes of making the worlds through the Pro Tour again, while Sivertsen is a bit less well known, down in the seventies for averages, but this is a returning team having gone 1-1-1 with South Africa and Poland last year. I think the gap between Dekker and whoever is smaller than that between Sivertsen and whoever, and we could get a tiebreak again. It wouldn't take much for Norway to do enough to qualify, but they could easily collapse as well. Tier - C
Hungary (Kovacs/Szekely) - Our final team sees the Hungarians look to finally get something going, and they've got a couple of players who've been here before, but not in this exact team. Kovacs was at the worlds having won the Hungarian super league but was fairly easily beaten by Callan Rydz, while Szekely is a good but not great veteran, with players like Peter Kelemen and Andras Borbely who are coming through perhaps quite not being ready for this level of play. They'll be a steady team, probably not with the upside needed to get out of the group, but against this level of group, where they'd probably be projected to finish third, a win does not seem completely unreasonable. As such, got to give them a decent ranking. Tier - B
So there you have it.
S - England
A - Poland, Spain
B - Australia, Canada, Czechia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mongolia, Philippines, Wales, USA
C - Austria, China, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden
D - Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland
F - Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda
