Fantrax NMA-11 Cup: Round-4 Results and Round-5 Draw

GW-30 comprised only four matches, but it was also the NMA-11 Cup’s 4th round, where the 32 surviving teams were whittled down to the last 16. With so few games being played, there was plenty of scope for non-players, as discounts were held, but add to that a few last-minute Covid cases, and few fantasy teams fielded a full playing compliment.

Of course, just because you had players actually taking part was no guarantee of success, especially if you went for Jimenez who scored minus 7.5 points due to his red card, and the generally solid Wolves defense shipped three goals. The effect of that third goal (as seen in the picture above) was to push Jose Sa into negative territory too. His minus three points was enough to scupper at least two teams in the cup.

Unsurprisingly therefore, there was a wide range of scoring among the 32 teams in the competition, with four sides over the 100 point mark (only seven teams in the whole league managed to top 100 points), but eight failed to break 60 points (the lowest being blog editor Jeff’s Alehouse WAGs (aka Barnsley) who only managed 50.5 points despite a decent defense. For this team, keeping discounts on KDB and Salah did not pay off, in the cup at least. [Ed note: Neither did buying Raya, Eriksen and Toney! :( ]

There were a couple of one-sided matches, with Team paulys_dreamteam (aka Everton) scoring the week’s best of 110.5 to defeat THKSFIGHT (aka Ipswich Town) by 55 points, and Team Chris_Manfredi (aka Fulham) defeating Sparta FC (aka Preston North End) by 107.5 to 53, a margin of 54.5 points.

Four games had a winning margin of less than 10 points, with the closest being AREIRTE HELLAS (aka Millwall) just squeezing past Ultimate AGFC (aka Bristol Rovers) by 68 to 66. The winners here kept Ederson and De Bruyne for two zeros, but the losers included Sa and Jimenez for minus 10.5. Sometimes things just go your way!

The most fortunate team of the round award (lowest winning score) goes to [TyF] SAROMAGDEN84 (aka Burnley), who managed only 59 points, but came up against Omonoia FC (aka Bristol City) who managed only 56.5. The losers here also had Sa in goal, where even a deliberate zero would have seen the result reversed!

The unluckiest team of the round (highest losing score) was Aletico JP (aka Luton Town) who scored a highly respectable 97 points (12th best for the whole league) but came up against a surprisingly high-scoring The Motley Crewe (aka Southampton) who managed 108.5. I say surprising because this is my team and I’d spent most of the weekend bemoaning selection mistakes!

The last two ‘non-league’ teams in the competition were defeated (Team minhtruong (aka Eastleigh) and Team CathalDonnelly (aka Weymouth) by Team redstoglory (aka Charlton Athletic) and Team sakiv (aka Blackpool) respectively. With the unexpected demise of Team stallexpress (aka Arsenal), who lost to Team DavidBrian (aka Coventry City), the teams who qualified at the top of the league (in GW-20) are now very poorly represented, although 183168 (aka Man City) is still moving through smoothly after a 91 : 62 win over Jay spearing (aka Crystal Palace).

There are now only six ‘Premier League’ sides left in the competition, with the Championship better represented (7 teams), plus two from League 1 and one from League 2 (Team stormtrooper84 - aka Sutton United). They may be the lowest-ranked team left, but they should not be underestimated, having scored 102.5 points in their win over premier league Team Captaingerrard (aka Leeds).

Here are the results in full.

Round-4 Draw

The 16 remaining teams are all seasoned cup competitors now, so there are no easy games left. This is how the draw for Round 5 looks:

As usual there are some interesting-looking fixtures, but the pick must be Team JCUnited1 (aka Brighton and Hove Albion) taking on the mighty 183168 (aka Manchester City).

Round 5 will take place in week 32 (April 8th to 10th), which due to the international break is a long time away. It’s another Friday deadline, so be aware! At the time of writing, it is a real rarity in this year’s cup competition, in that it features all twenty teams playing once - including the much awaited Manchester City vs Liverpool match. No doubt there will be much thought being given to lineups already!

Did you take part in Round-4? If so, how did you fare? If you made it into Round-5, let’s hear from you about your chances. And which of you who were eliminated earlier would’a could’a should’a beaten most of this week’s winners? Please log in and share in the comments.

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