NMA-11 Cup: Qualifying Round Results and Round-1 Draw

Double game-week 22 saw the start of the NMA-11 Cup, the second Fantrax F-11 cup of the season. GW-22 featured the qualifying round, with the 64 ‘non-league’ teams (those ranked 93-156 in our NMA league at the end of GW20) fighting to win their way into the first round proper.

Many, if not most, of these low-ranked teams are ghost squads that have been abandoned by their managers, but despite this there were still some decent scores among them. And because of the head-to-head format of this cup, you are never safe regardless of your league ranking.

Here are the qualifying round results in full:

The highest scorer among these teams was Crossfire Hurricane. Ranked 120 at the end of GW20, they managed to score among the top 40 for the week. They included only two double-game players, although those were two of the best in Rashford and Fernandez. This team also had Mitoma, Kepa, Tete and Badiashile who all scored in double figures. This looks like a dangerous team, despite their lowly league position, and their opponent Andy (Salary) Capp was well beaten by 138.5 to 86.

The week’s biggest winning margin was 95.5 points (a total that over half of these teams didn’t even reach), with Team Galbally strolling past Joeyis by 131 to 35.5. The poor performers in this side included Allison, Almiron and Salah for a combined score of minus 7 points. That was further compounded by the inclusion of Foden and Cancelo, neither of whom played (and the latter was hardly likely to, given that he’s moved to Bayern Munich on loan).

There were no really close matches, with the tightest margin being 5.5 points as Bottlers failed to live up to their name in a 111 : 105.5 win over Vidukas Bar and Grill. Amazingly, Bottlers also featured in the closest match of last years qualifying round! The losers here were pretty unfortunate to fall despite such a solid score. But they were not the unluckiest team of the round, since Easton FC scored 111 points and yet still ended up on the losing side since their opponents [TyF] SAROMAGDEN84 racked up 137.5 points.

The luckiest team of the round, ie, the lowest scoring winner, was Tsing Yi PPL who scored only 40.5 points, but were mightily fortunate to come up against Team sean_mck23 who managed only 31 points. The winner here looks like an abandoned team, not having changed for many weeks and currently including long-term injury absentees Dean Henderson and Gabriel Jesus. Their opponents in the next round will surely be looking forward to an easy win?

So, 32 teams have made it through qualifying and are now joined in Round 1 by the teams who qualified in positions 45 - 92 as of GW20 (the League 1 and League 2 teams). Here is the draw for Round 1 (remember that if you qualified as a Premier League or Championship team, you can relax and wait until Round 3 before you enter the fray).

With the qualifying round behind us, Round 1 will take place in GW24, which at the time of writing is a single game week for all Premier League clubs. With teams entering the competition now ranked in the league’s top 50, we can expect some strong performances, and maybe some big upsets. GW-24 includes some nice-looking fixtures, so I’m sure there will be plenty of points to be had. Which of the teams here will best find them?

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Did your squad participate in the qualifying round, and if so how did it fare? Are you playing in Round 1? If so, let’s hear from you about your chances this year. Please let us know in the comments.

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