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NMA-11 Cup: Round 1 Results and Round 2 Draw

80 teams battled it out this week — were you there?

Bruno Fernandes - Manchester United - Premier League
Top points scorer for the week
Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

GW-24 saw the first round of the Fantrax NMA-11 Cup take place. This featured 80 Fantrax teams — those ‘non-league’ teams who’d battled through the qualifying round plus the ‘League 1’ and ‘League 2’ teams, all rankings based on teams’ qualifying positions in GW-20 in the Fantrax NMA-11 league.

In real life, we saw some unexpected results, especially on Saturday. Man City drew at Nottingham Forest thanks to a late equalizer; tail-spinning Chelsea lost at home to bottom team Southampton; second-bottom Bournemouth won at Wolves; Fulham upset Brighton away from home; and Brentford just salvaged only a draw at home to Crystal Palace.

Liverpool also won fairly comfortably at Newcastle — not an upset in previous years, but certainly against the form of both teams this season. Add in a gritty home win and clean sheet for Everton against Leeds, and it was clear that a lot of points were going to unexpected places. Arsenal did win, although the Gunners needed two late goals to get past Aston Villa. On Sunday, results reverted more to form, with Man United and Tottenham both having fairly comfortable home wins with clean sheets.

Having a cup week where there are a lot of real-life upsets can lead to fantasy upsets too. Four teams in the league posted scores over 130 points, their current league positions being: 10, 91, 321 and 311! Two of these teams had only nine players who actually played, and only one of them fielded a full compliment of 11!

Here are the results in full:

NMA-11 Cup Round 1 results

Eqivalent team Team Score : Score Team Eqivalent team
Eqivalent team Team Score : Score Team Eqivalent team
Wycombe Wanderers Team Stijnen 112.5 : 124.5 Ledang LFC Sutton United
Peterborough United Kostas Hotspurs 127.5 : 101.5 Team Galbally Barnet
Lincoln City 1Arsenal 75 : 75.5 Team tampatonz Curzon Ashton
Southport West Spam United 66.5 : 91.5 Team donnelly2007 Chester FC
Northampton Town Team CathalDonnelly 78.5 : 103.5 Tolaria Port Vale
Bradford City Team StuB 119.5 : 94 Team JBautista125 Fleetwood Town
Leyton Orient PPQ 126.5 : 108.5 Cactus Functus Yeovil Town
AFC Wimbledon Cikupa Fantasy 112.5 : 88.5 Team 3timelucky Scunthorpe United
Grimsby Town Real Madrid 42 : 96.5 Lua Lua Cambridge United
Accrington Stanley Pigs F.C 124.5 : 122 Team Baziu Crewe Alexandra
Southend United [TyF] SAROMAGDEN84 71.5 : 117.5 Team christopherm1 Darlington
Hartlepool United Bilbao Baggins 99.5 : 98 Aletico JP Bristol Rovers
Barrow HardasChuck 128.5 : 122 [TyF] Nunezbian MK Dons
Wealdstone Christian Soldiers 137.5 : 98 Team wengc1980 Chesterfield
Swindon Town I Toooold You!!! 47.5 : 87.5 Bravo United Stevenage
Colchester United teamanjewood 97 : 85.5 2NE1 Dagenham & Redbridge
Cheltenham Town Hooligans United 99.5 : 65 Kavedas Morecambe
Plymouth Argyle Ultimate AGFC 81.5 : 92 FC Hothouses Portsmouth
Forest Green Rovers Team redstoglory 91.5 : 95.5 [TyF] Ragasaki Bolton Wanderers
Aldershot Town Team G2FC 71 : 105 Bumbling Bois Dorking Wanderers
Halifax Town The Mighty Maxio 49 : 92.5 juve Harrogate Town
Peterborough Sports Brisa 96 : 72 Le Titans 11 Scarborough Athletic
York City Haaland Oates 78 : 60 Fight to the Last Ukrainian Salford City
Sheffield Wednesday Team MIFFY_FC 102 : 34 Tsing Yi PPL Tonbridge Angels
Oldham Athletic Team DongRom 76.5 : 95 XMEN1892 Fylde
Newport County Team mmdan112 93 : 31.5 Team Conoo3 Oxford City
Derby County Ano's team 2022/23 65 : 109 Team taquito Stockport County
Tranmere Rovers ☘️Allez Allez Allez 97 : 75 [TyF] London_FC Walsall
Hemel Hempstead Town Spoonthumb FC 107.5 : 74.5 Scootlands St Albans City
Charlton Athletic [TyF] INGU Academy 110 : 126.5 Team saxo Ipswich Town
Gillingham MKH 110.5 : 61.5 Team intheorist King's Lynn Town
Dartford Crossfire Hurricane 85.5 : 93.5 SuperPatco Shrewsbury Town
Bromley EPL GALACTICO'S 70.5 : 94.5 Team BlueBloodedx Burton Albion
Torquay United Bottlers 117 : 112.5 Haalandaise Oxford United
Boreham Wood Awthena FC 112 : 77.5 RenLowe Bradford Park Avenue
Crawley Town Team JenJen11 71.5 : 64.5 AKC Mansfield Town
Doncaster Rovers Team c444si 52 : 36.5 PAOK Kidderminster Harriers
Carlisle United Team Pikey666 81 : 71.5 Baltimore Oreos Slough Town
Exeter City Omonoia FC 123 : 50.5 Nic Rochdale
Barnsley Paphos Toffees 100.5 : 75.5 NBSVV11 Braintree Town

Highest scorers here, and second-placed for the entire week was Christian Soldiers with 137.5 points. This was achieved despite including Akanji and Porro who didn’t play and with Haaland’s -4 points. But they included Bruno Fernandes, Rashford, Alisson, Zinchenko, Saka, De Bruyne and Salah who all scored well. So they ran out comfortable winners over Team wengc1980 who scored a not-terrible 98, but fell short by 39.5 points.

The biggest winning margin of the round was 72.5 points, with Omonoia FC overcoming Nic 123 : 50.5. Fernandes, Rashford and Saka formed the nucleus of this winning team — as they did for many high-performing teams this week. The losers not only failed to include any of these, but also had Haaland and Ederson for a combined -4.5 plus four other players who scored zero (two of whom did play). Negative points from six of your players combined never bodes well!

There were several very close matches, with five ties being decided by fewer than five points. The closest featured Team tampatonz squeezing past 1Arsenal by 75.5 : 75. One extra foul would have made all the difference here!

The most unfortunate team of the round award, given to the highest points scored by a losing team, goes to two teams this week, with both Team Baziu and [TyF] Nunezbian losing despite scoring 122, which put them in the top twenty scores for the week overall. They came up against Pigs F.C and HardasChuck respectively who posted scores of 124.5 and 128.5.

The converse award, that of most fortunate team, who progressed with the lowest winning score, goes to Team c444si who scored a mere 52 points — 70 points fewer than the unfortunate teams — but were fortunate to come up against PAOK who posted a feeble 36.5.

40 teams therefore advance to Round 2. Here is the draw:

NMA-11 Cup Round 2 fixtures

Eqivalent team Team v Team Eqivalent team
Eqivalent team Team v Team Eqivalent team
Wealdstone Christian Soldiers v Omonoia FC Exeter City
Bradford City Team StuB v Brisa Peterborough Sports
Stevenage Bravo United v Team JenJen11 Crawley Town
Portsmouth FC Hothouses v Team taquito Stockport County
Hemel Hempstead Town Spoonthumb FC v HardasChuck Barrow
AFC Wimbledon Cikupa Fantasy v SuperPatco Shrewsbury Town
Leyton Orient PPQ v XMEN1892 Fylde
York City Haaland Oates v Hooligans United Cheltenham Town
Barnsley Paphos Toffees v Team donnelly2007 Chester FC
Darlington Team christopherm1 v Team tampatonz Curzon Ashton
Peterborough United Kostas Hotspurs v [TyF] Ragasaki Bolton Wanderers
Burton Albion Team BlueBloodedx v Bottlers Torquay United
Dorking Wanderers Bumbling Bois v Bilbao Baggins Hartlepool United
Port Vale Tolaria v Team MIFFY_FC Sheffield Wednesday
Ipswich Town Team saxo v Team Pikey666 Carlisle United
Newport County Team mmdan112 v teamanjewood Colchester United
Cambridge United Lua Lua v juve Harrogate Town
Accrington Stanley Pigs F.C v Awthena FC Boreham Wood
Tranmere Rovers ☘️Allez Allez Allez v Team c444si Doncaster Rovers
Sutton United Ledang LFC v MKH Gillingham

Round 2 will take place in GW-26, which at the time of writing is a single game week for all teams including Liverpool v Man United and Man City v Newcastle, so the cup avoids the likely carnage of GW-25 with its blanks for some and doubles for others.

The winning 20 teams from Round-2 will join the ‘big’ teams in Round-3, so there’s plenty to play for!

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Did your squad participate in Round 1, and if so how did it fare? There must have been plenty of hard-luck stories - do you have one? Let’s hear from you about your chances this year. Please let us know in the comments.

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