Within sports and games played at the international competitive level, the Rest of the World refers to a team of players from many countries of origin that compete against a single individual or a team from a single group, such as a club or country.
Overview
As a Rest of the World team usually has little experience in playing together or working as a team, their ability is not usually considered indicative of their actual abilities, either individually or as members of their usual teams, and as such, games played against the rest of the world are not normally considered to show the true talent of either the rest of the world or the team competing against them. As a consequence, Rest of the World matches are usually played as one-off events either as friendly games or for a non-competitive special purpose, such as
international aid
In international relations, aid (also known as international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid, economic aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another.
Ai ...
or commemoration.
However, some such events can produce spectacular and intense games, such as the chess game between
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
and
the Rest of the World in 1999. The
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
chess matches were also tightly contested.
Examples
In
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...
, the
Other Nationalities
The Other Nationalities rugby league team are a rugby league representative team that usually consists of non-English players. They have also played under the name The Exiles and more recently Combined Nations All Stars. They competed in the first ...
team played from 1904 to 1975. In
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
, the
British and Irish Lions
The British & Irish Lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The Lions are a test side and most often select players who have already played for their national ...
faced the
Rest of the World XV
British Lions v The Rest was a 1986 rugby union match that saw the British Lions play against 'The Rest' to celebrate the centenary of the International Rugby Football Board. The Rest consisted of players from Australia, France, New Zealand and ...
in 1986.
In basketball, the
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
Rising Stars Challenge
The Rising Stars Challenge is a basketball exhibition game held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) on the Friday before the annual All-Star Game as part of the All-Star Weekend. The current format to be used in 2022 includes first- and ...
faces a Team USA versus a Team World since 2015.
Cricket
Noted examples of
Rest of the World teams in
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
included those organised to tour England in 1970 and Australia in 1971-2 in place of planned tours from
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
abandoned because of political opposition due to the
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
policy. Although the matches in 1970 were declared at the time to have official
Test cricket
Test cricket is a form of first-class cricket played at international level between teams representing full member countries of the International Cricket Council (ICC). A match consists of four innings (two per team) and is scheduled to last fo ...
status, this was subsequently withdrawn. A World XI also played against Australia in the
2005 ICC Super Series. The
first class match in that series retains Test match status, a move which was and is controversial with some cricket statisticians such as
Bill Frindall
William Howard Frindall, (3 March 1939 – 29 January 2009) was an English cricket scorer and statistician, who was familiar to cricket followers as a member of the Test Match Special commentary team on BBC radio. He was nicknamed the Bearded Wo ...
. However the status is unlikely to be withdrawn in part because of the effect on noted cricket records; for instance without the wickets taken in this match,
Muthiah Muralitharan would fall slightly short of 800 career test wickets. A world XI also competed in unofficial
World Series Cricket
World Series Cricket (WSC) was a commercial professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 which was organised by Kerry Packer and his Australian television network, Nine Network. WSC ran in commercial competition to establishe ...
in 1977-9, and a "Rest of the World XI" contested two short tournaments in England dubbed the "World Cricket Cup" in 1966 and 1967, struggling in the first, but emerging victorious in the second.
Association football
The first example of a
Rest of the World team in
football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
occurred on
23rd October 1963, when a Rest of the World side played against England at
Wembley stadium
Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...
in an occasion to mark a centenary celebration of the sport. The game was marked by strong performances by
Jimmy Greaves
James Peter Greaves (20 February 1940 – 19 September 2021) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward. Greaves is regarded as one of England’s best ever players. He is England's fifth-highest international goalscorer ...
,
Lev Yashin
Lev Ivanovich Yashin (russian: Лев Иванович Яшин; 22 October 1929 – 20 March 1990), nicknamed the "Black Spider" or the "Black Panther", was a Soviet professional footballer regarded by many as the greatest goalkeeper in the hi ...
,
Denis Law
Denis Law (born 24 February 1940) is a Scottish former footballer who played as a forward. His career as a football player began at Second Division Huddersfield Town in 1956. After four years at Huddersfield, he was signed by Manchester City ...
(who played for the Rest of the World), and
Luis Eyzaguirre
Luis Armando Eyzaguirre Silva (born 22 June 1939), also known as Fifo, is a former Chilean football player. He played right back in the Universidad de Chile football team known as the '' Ballet Azul'', with which he won five national championshi ...
(which earned him the nickname "Fifo," after
FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
). A similar event occurred on 8th August 1987 when such a side contested a match, also at Wembley, against a Football League XI to commemorate the centenary of the
English football league
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engl ...
. This comprised the last high-profile occasion on which
Diego Maradona
Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the FI ...
played on English soil. Although the game was sparsely attended, the hostile reception of Maradona, just over a year after the "
Hand of God" incident, was notable.
Gary Lineker
Gary Winston Lineker (; born 30 November 1960) is an English former professional footballer and current sports broadcaster. He is regarded as having been one of the greatest English strikers. His media career began with the BBC, where he has p ...
, who at the time was playing for
FC Barcelona
Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football.
Founded ...
, played alongside Maradona for the Rest of the World.
Golf
Two events in
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
, one currently active and the other defunct, involve teams officially labeled "International" that are effectively "rest of the world" teams. The
Presidents Cup
The Presidents Cup is a series of men's golf matches between a team representing the United States and an International Team representing the rest of the world minus Europe. Europe competes against the United States in a similar but considerably ...
in men's golf, held in odd-numbered years, features competition between a
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
team and an "International" team made up of non-European players (
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
ans compete against the US in even-numbered years in the
Ryder Cup
The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is contested every two years with the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup is named af ...
). The now-defunct
Lexus Cup
The Lexus Cup was an annual golf tournament played between 2005 and 2008 for professional women golfers contested by a team representing Asia and an international team representing the rest of the world. It was sanctioned by the LPGA Tour, in women's golf was an annual competition that matched an
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
team against an "International" team drawn from all other nationalities.
Non-sporting usage
Outside sports and games, Rest of World (RoW) is also a term used to distinguish an unspecified but inclusive group of nations from one or more dominant players in the comparative analysis of markets, economies, military capabilities, and so forth, especially in graphs or charts to show the numbers representing the other countries.
The
Federation of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who wo ...
, for instance, provides a list of RoW weapons systems, meaning systems belonging to nations other than the United States.
On 22 November 2022, the
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who ar ...
announced that, starting from , the
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...
would include a televote from non-participating countries for the first time. Viewers from non-participating countries would also be able to vote in all shows, with their votes being aggregated and presented as one individual set of points under "Rest of the World".
See also
*
World XI (association football)
*
World XI (cricket) ICC World XI, World XI, Rest of the World, or similar names, may refer to the following cricket teams:
;Annual all-star selections:
* ICC Test Team of the Year, since 2004
* ICC ODI Team of the Year, also since 2004
;Teams that played matches:
* Res ...
*
International XI women's cricket team
The International XI women's cricket team was a team that took part in two Women's Cricket World Cups. They were essentially a "best of the rest" team, including players not selected by their own countries. They took part in the 1973 Women's Cr ...
*
List of international rugby union teams
The following is a list of international rugby union teams:
National teams – band classification
Starting in 2008, in addition to the existing tier system, the IRB introduced a four-band system of classification in which unions are classifi ...
*
Other Nationalities rugby league team
The Other Nationalities rugby league team are a rugby league representative team that usually consists of non-English players. They have also played under the name The Exiles and more recently Combined Nations All Stars. They competed in the first ...
*
:Multi-national teams in international cricket
References
Figures of speech
Terminology used in multiple sports
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