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The NMA Blog Cups 2021-22

We’ll have two NMA Cup competitions again this year

World Cup Trophy
They’re not quite the World Cup, but they’re equally valuable to fantasy managers
Photo by Michael Regan - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images

Last year we ran two cup competitions, and since people seemed to enjoy them last time, I plan to do the same again this year. I’ll run broadly the same two competitions as last year using Fantrax NMA-11 league teams and scores.


The “Blog Cup”

A weekly-rankings cup will take place between GW-6 and GW-18. In this hotly contested competition, all teams in Fantrax NMA-11 as of GW-6 will start, with a number of teams surviving each week based on that week’s scores. Progress will take place as follows:

Blog Cup 2022 Schedule

Week number Who takes part? Who qualifies?
Week number Who takes part? Who qualifies?
Week 4 All teams top 130 teams
Week 6 130 qualifiers top 90 teams
Week 8 90 qualifiers top 65 teams
Week 10 65 qualifiers top 48 teams
Week 12 48 qualifiers top 32 teams
Week 14 32 qualifiers top 20 teams
Week 16 20 qualifiers 1 winner

NMA-11 Cup

Then from week 22, in January 2022, I’ll run our NMA-11 Cup, which is loosely based on the English FA Cup. This is a head to head competition; I publish the draw ahead of each round, and the higher-earning team from each pair makes it through to the next round.

In this competition, like the FA Cup, higher-tier teams enter the competition in later rounds. So the NMA-11 league positions at the conclusion of round 20 will determine who qualifies to each tier. This is how the cup qualifying will look:

NMA-11 Cup qualifying

Week 20 positions Equivalent league Entry gameweek
Week 20 positions Equivalent league Entry gameweek
Top 20 teams Premier League 28
Positions 21-44 Championship 28
Positions 45-68 League 1 24
Positions 69-92 League 2 24
Positions 93-156 Non-league 22

Each even-numbered gameweek starting from week 22 will be a cup week, as follows:

NMA-11 Cup schedule

Gameweek Cup Round Number of teams
Gameweek Cup Round Number of teams
22 Qualifying 64
24 Round 1 80
26 Round 2 40
28 Round 3 64
30 Round 4 32
32 Round 5 16
34 Quarter-finals 8
36 Semi-finals 4
38 Final 2

In both competitions, in the case of a tie, the winning team will be decided as follows:

1) Team that scored more goals

2) Number of goals conceded per minute played

3) Team that was saved earlier

Tiebreaker 3 wasn’t needed last year and is just there in the unlikely event that two identical teams come up against each other. Thanks to commissioner Jeff for adding the stats that make it easy to work this all out!

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I hope you’re looking forward to the cups this year, and remember that you only need to perform well in the cup-weeks to win, so everyone has a chance! Let us know in the comments how you’re feeling about this years competition.

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