NMA-11 Cup: Round 2 Results and Round 3 Draw

EPL game-week 26 was also Round 2 of the NMA-11 Cup, where 40 teams battled it out to make it through to Round 3. Just like the FA Cup, it’s at Round 3 where the top-seeded teams (equivalent to Premier League and Championship teams) enter the competition, so those 44 teams together with the 20 winners from Round 2 comprise the final 64 teams in this year’s competition.

You’re probably tempted to just scroll down to find the Round 3 draw, but first let’s have a look at how Round 2 went.

In real-life, many of the EPL results went to form, although Wolves upsetting Spurs 1-0 was not widely expected. The stand-out result of course was the 7-0 demolition of Manchester United by Liverpool.

In fantasy there were a lot of frustrated managers (myself included) who bought heavily into Liverpool assets for last week’s double, and then sold them off this week when they exploded into life. Arsenal’s home game against Bournemouth looked like a solid banker and while that’s how it eventually ended, Bournemouth initially led 2-0 and it took a last-gasp winner for Arsenal to nick it. This meant that Arsenal defensive options didn’t score as well as hoped (although those of us who went for Ben White were given a roller-coaster of an afternoon as he spent the first half on the bench but then came on and scored).

What this meant in terms of fantasy scoring was that there were a lot of high scores, but not many of these by teams placed high in the league. Twenty teams scored 127 or more, but only one of these is currently in the top 20 in the NMA-11 league. So probably there were a lot of teams not being heavily changed, where a strong Liverpool component resulted in a high score. Six of the top-ten scoring teams this week were participants in Round 2.

Here are the second round results in full:

The week’s highest scorer was Team MIFFY_FC, a team with past cup history, having won the Blog cup in 2021. Their score of 164.5 was achieved despite absorbing a minus two from Keylor Navas. The rest of the squad was extremely strong, with Salah’s 37.5, Gakpo’s 26.5 and Pinnock’s 23.5 leading the way, and Trippier bringing up the rear with 7.5. Unsurprisingly they had a comfortable win by 67 points over Tolaria, who did slightly better in goal with Ramsdale’s 2 points, but had none of the week’s big point scorers in their 97.5.

The biggest winning margin of the round was owned by Team mmdan112, who racked up 123 points to beat teamanjewood, who was able to muster only 42.5, the lowest score of the round. That’s a healthy 80.5 point winning margin.

There was only one very close matchup, and a pretty low scoring contest it was too, as Team taquito scraped past FC Hothouses by 66 to 63. Team Taquito also wins the “most fortunate team of the round” award, with the lowest winning score.

The most unfortunate team of the round was Team Pikey666, who despite managing an excellent 130.5 points (joint-16th best in the league overall), was up against Team saxo who scored 148.5. This was a very high-quality contest, and while both teams had Pinnock and Mac Allister, the winner also had Salah and Alisson, who made the difference.

So twenty teams have fought their way through Rounds 1 and 2 (two of them also came through the qualifying round!) and are now joined by the 44 top-qualifying teams (based on their Round 2 scores). Here is the draw, and there are some cracking fixtures in store:

Many of the regular contributors to the blog are now involved, and perhaps the stand-out fixture of the round pits Team stallexpress against Team DavidBrian. I have a feeling we will hear more about this one in the comments! While David certainly has his work cut out, amazingly this was a Round 4 fixture last year and David’s team made it through. So will Stall get his revenge this year? Perhaps the fact that Stall doesn’t hold Haaland at big discount will tip the balance this year, since he won’t feel bound to carry him through City’s blank in Round 3.

Round three will take place in game week 28. There are only seven games in that week so six teams do not play, including Manchester City and Manchester United. Like Dave, many Fantrax managers will have to face difficult decisions about whether to keep discounted players for guaranteed zeroes.

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Did your squad participate in Round 2, and if so how did it fare? Will you play in Round 3, and how do you rate your chances? What will you do about your players with blanks? How many zeroes can you afford? Please let us know in the comments.

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