I can’t believe that it has been 4 years already… And I am not just talking about the last time John McCain tweeted Snookie about tax policy (yes that happened). I am of course talking about the last time we all settled in to cheer on our home country in the World Cup!

There is a lot to talk about this year as “the beautiful game” gets ready to take center stage…

US stalwart, Landon Donovan, has failed to make the US roster… Which is unfortunate, as he is the only player that the casual American soccer fan can name (including me).

If you ladies out there are having trouble getting pumped for this international extravaganza, I have one thing to say…Cristiano Ronaldo. The US plays Portugal in the group round and I invite you to tune in, if for no other reason than in the event he scores a goal and enthusiastically removes his shirt.

A strong performance from Argentina’s Lionel Messi could vault him into the position of “best player ever.” But he needs to perform in the World Cup in order for the nerdiest of Umbro wearing soccer enthusiasts to feel comfortable putting him ahead of legends like Pele and Maradona.

Regardless of your interest level, the World Cup begins June 12th and is graciously providing another excuse to procrastinate at work by researching the groupings and betting on Team USA to shock the world and make it out of the infamous “group of death”!

To aid in this endeavor, spreadsheet black belt Allyssa Tzavlakis has pulled out all of the stops in the most ridiculous spreadsheet pool yet with the FREE Excel Rain Man 2014 World Cup Manager. The World Cup starts on Thursday, June 12th and since this is not Excel Rain Man’s first trip to the World Cup rodeo, this masterpiece has been troubleshooted and is ready to roll with plenty of time to gather some pretty large pools. 2014 New Year’s Rezzie for Excel Rain Man? Less Procrastinating… check!

The FREE Excel Rain Man 2014 World Cup Manager, WorldCup2014_EntryForm_Round1 and WorldCup2014_EntryForm_Round2 can be found on the Tips & Tricks page of www.ExcelRainMan.com.

For more information on how to use the 2014 World Cup Manager, please see below.

Tell all your friends to download the World Cup 2014 Form for Round 1 from the Tips & Tricks page of ExcelRainMan.com. If your pool participants are even lazier than you (unlikely), feel free to download and email the WorldCup2014_EntryForm_Round1 around to friends, fraternity bros, fellow rec soccer weirdoes, Bob in Finance, whoever… Participants use simple drop-down menus in the Bracket to select their picks for each game. Make sure that they send you their picks before the first game by Thursday, June 12th @ 4 pm EST.

After completing and saving their forms for Round 1, participants will send their completed forms back to the Pool Manager, who can easily upload everyone’s World Cup 2014 Form for Round 1 into the 2014 World Cup Manager (simple instructions for uploading forms are also provided in the Manager’s zip file). The Pool Manager has full control over the point system used for each round (i.e. Round 1: 1 point per-win, 3 points if advancing to next round; Round 2: increased points for each win).

Generic Round 2 forms can be found on the Tips & Tricks page of ExcelRainMan.com as well. As soon as the 16 teams are known on June 27th (maybe even June 26th), we will post the detailed Round 2 form… you know where. It is then up to you to demand that Round 2 forms are completed and returned to the Pool Manager before the beginning of Round 2 on June 28th @ 12pm EST.

With this Excel Rain Man World Cup solution, participants can just save their completed personal, print-ready forms to their desktop (forms must still be submitted to the Pool Manager of course).

As the World Cup progresses, the Pool Manager must simply select each game’s winner using the drop-down menus (in the “R1 – Winning” and “R2 – Winning” tabs), and our bad ass World Cup Manager will tally the standings.
Let the games begin!

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the use of Macros, the 2014 World Cup Manager will not work properly on Mac Computers. However, individual forms can be filled out by Mac and PC users. Phew!