Pool play finished out in the open and mixed divisions, while the women's division began seeding teams into the bracket with crossover play.
August 19, 2026 by Patrick Stegemoeller in Recap
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2026 WFDF World Ultimate Club Championships is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
Mixed Division
Teams in the mixed division finished out pool play with just one game each today and — we won’t sugarcoat this — there was a distinct lack of intrigue. The sea was calm, low chop, good for sailing.
In five of the eight pools, the top seed won the pool not only by going undefeated, but with a goal difference of +19 or greater. Overall no.1 seed Hybrid had a goal differential of +45 over the second place team in their pool, +50 total. Only three teams that can plausibly be considered underdogs across the division broke seed to make the bracket. And in today’s games, not a single matchup was within two points, and only two games managed to finish within three. Pretty grim.
Rampaging Royals
The most interesting result was probably Royals from Canada putting a 15-7 beatdown on SuperNova. The 39th seed, SuperNova had exceeded expectations, notching upset wins to clinch a spot in the bracket yesterday, and even went up a couple breaks early today. But the Supernova hype may have hit its ceiling at the hands of Justin Podnar, Collefas Mot, James Lehmann, and the spikey young Canadians that comprise the Royals roster. The Canadians went on two separate five-point runs during the game, first to take half, then to take the win.
After dropping a game against Tiefseetaucher that was in their hands to miss out on winning the pool, Royals are rolling into the bracket, and will be a scary proposition for the tournament’s top seeds in an elimination game.
Zamperl Zip Up Pool C
The highest billed Mixed game heading into the game was Manly Mosh vs. Zamperl, a top of the pool showdown between the Australian title contenders versus the German Cinderellas (“Aschenputtels” according to Google translate) who has more or less smashed everybody in the poll before Tuesday.
But with Union’s win earlier in the day over Outsiterz, much of the dramatic air was let out of the balloon: Zamperl would win and take the pool via tiebreaker so long as they didn’t lose to Mosh by five points or more. Let’s see if you can figure out from looking at this game flow chart exactly when they scored enough to clinch the pool.
So Mosh got the victory on paper, Zamperl won the pool, and both teams should be viable contenders once the bracket starts up tomorrow. Mosh will take on a Tartu Turbulence team that hasn’t yet shown an ability to punch up, while Zamperl face the one-win ERHe Ultimate.
Open Division
It was bracket setting day in the Men’s Division, with battles at the top and bottom of the pools, deciding who would get the prime position heading into the bracket, who would scrape through in the last few positions, and who would spend the rest of their tournament muddling around in consolation.
Fiery Pool F
The most exciting action centered around Pools F and E, and we must start with Pool F, which has seen the highest caliber ultimate and drama throughout the group stage of the tournament.
It was a banner day for English open teams, as Chevron Action Flash continued their impressive play, beating Nomadic Tribe, the nominal top seed in the group, 15-10. Chevy made use of verticality and manufactured open space despite Nomadic Tribe’s field-collapsing defensive looks. That was their big test of the day, as Chevron steamrolled Zoom in the afternoon to clinch the topsy-turvy pool.
Behind Chevron, Tchac did what they needed to do to finish in second. The French outfit pieced up Freespeed 15-6 in the morning, with Elliot Bonnet making a nutso catch on a disc over his head and fading away to seal the game.
That was a warmup for the game of the day in the pool, as Tchac locked up second place by sending home the immensely talented Blue Devils on universe point. For a while, it looked like the Blue Devils — essentially a pickup team with several of the best players from DC and Minnesota — would stave off Tchac and elimination. The Devils put up an early break lead and Tchac were barely hanging on, squeaking out holds with wild back-line layout grabs and finding super congested windows.
But cracks began to appear, and by the end of the first half, Tchac started taking the disc off of the talented Blue Devil O-line. Tchac were able to string enough breaks together to bring the game to universe, but were pulling and needed a break to win. Universe point ended up as a microcosm of BD’s pickup-team-energy success and follies. Working the disc up to the goal line with aplomb, the Devils almost turned the disc on an errant swing stemming from a reset scheme mistake, but out-talented the mistake by retaining possession on a skillful read and grab. One throw later however, they actually turned the disc over due to a backfield chemistry miscue, and Tchac had their chance.
Miles Grovic overpursued on the forceside trying to stop a phantom give-go, and the Blue Devils lost forceside containment, leaving Bonnet to send a free breakside flick to the house for the win.
Energetic Pool E
Over in Pool E, we got another major matchup, with Clapham playing Gentle for the pool.
Both sides won their morning round games, starting with Gentle 15-13 over 3SB. We knew Gentle would be good, but 3SB have been one of the fun surprises of the tournament so far. Down 8-5, they put up three breaks in the second half to pull the game back to 13-12, but never managed to even the score, and Gentle’s Boston Glory connection of Tobe Decraene to Orion Cable sealed the win on the final point.
Clapham beat Mephisto comfortably, continuing the down tournament for the team from Montreal, who finished an unconvincing fourth place in the pool. They’re still in contention, but face an opening round quarter against BFD La Fotta.
The main event between Gentle and Clapham kicked off as the last game of the day on the showcase field. It was perhaps the first game of the tournament that felt like it had true championship skill, stakes, and intensity from the first point.
Connor McHale was immense for Clapham, leading the D-line to six breaks. The most important one came right out of half, with Clapham stopping any nascent Gentle momentum ona full field huck from McHale that was caught by a soaring Benjamin Hall.
That made the score 9-6, and Gentle never got the deficit closer than two points after that. The 15-11 final score leaves Decraene, Alex Atkins, Wolf Oosterlinck, and the rest of Gentle to lick their wounds before bracket play.
The rest of the Open group stage played out without much fanfare, with the top teams from the first two days of competition continuing to roundly pound their opponents. The bracket is next, with each game from the round of 32 taking place in the 11 AM local time slot.
Women’s Division
With the Women’s division’s unique format, the Tuesday morning crossovers between the top squads from pool play separated teams into their place in the championship bracket, or forced them into an elimination game against teams playing their way up from the lower crossovers.
Shout’s Strategic Scandal
In a game with high seeding stakes, D.C. Scandal beat BFD Shout 15-10 in the crossover, running seemingly more open lines than usual. Shout were unable to consistently convert break chances, echoing their close loss to Fury in pool play. Through those two games, Shout have shown that they can hang with the top US teams, but have not found a high enough gear to win those games.
It should be noted, however, that this may have been exactly the result Shout were looking for. The loss to Scandal put the Italians into the soft side of the bracket, giving them a direct path to the final without having to play any American teams. Both Charlotte Schall and Ava Mueller were shelved against Scandal, but returned with their usual gusto for a 15-8 walk in the park over Revo in the afternoon. Whether intentionally engineered or not, Shout have gotten what they surely wanted: clear blue skies on their side of the bracket.
Tokyo on Top
The most exciting watch from the morning round came courtesy of Tokyo Mavericks beating Macana, sending the top seed tumbling into the elimination crossover round. In the drizzly rain that has typified the Irish mornings, Mavericks maintained possession that too often seemed to slip away from other teams in the early round.
They put themselves in a good position to do so with smart spacing, the stack giving breathing room to Kaede Yoshida and Ayaka Sakamoto to win upline cuts, but staying close enough to offer connectivity to the handler action. Yoshida has been a demon out of the backfield, roasting defenders over and over, and scoring with ruthless effectiveness in Mavericks’ end zone set. She scored six goals in the morning’s crossover alone, leading the team with 14 on the tournament.
Both teams went 6/6 on holds in the second half until the final point when Mavericks were able to put in a break to win the game, Vale Cardenas missing a block by a layer of skin.
Around the Division
- Mooncup beat Ellipsis 15-12. Sloppy execution dogged the Ellipsis D-line, which had the disc to break and keep the game alive, but a first throw swing allowed Mooncup to put in the hold to win. The Belgian’s win puts them on the advantageous side of the bracket, while Ellipsis are staring down a quarter against Scandal.
- 6ixers held off Yaka to guarantee their spot in the round of 16. Toronto’s offense went 100% on second-half holds to stay in the game until their defense could put in the two breaks that would win it. The star was Natalia Gomez Dominguez and her 3G/3A statline, showing that 6ixers have stars beyond their World Games players.
- The second round elimination crossovers all went to expectations, with Macana surviving to play another day, MUD holding 3SB at arm’s length, Ellipsis pulling away from jinX midnight in the second half, and BFD Shout ending Revolution’s reign as world champs before the start of bracket play.
- Pour one out for Revo: the 2022 champs, the 2018 people’s champs, and one of the most exciting stories in ultimate over the past decade. Whether the best women’s players in Columbia consolidate under one roof again is an open question, but today marked the end of an era for the Revolution team as we’ve known it. Go back and watch the 2017 US Open final again some time if you ever feel a lack of joy and wonder in your life.
