The First Round results:
And your Second Round preview:
Round Two: The One Where… everyone else joins in.
AFC Chester #28 -v- Housewives Favourite #4
We begin with a rematch of a previous BFFA Cup game. The only time they met before was two years ago in a 2023 Quarter Final. It was a high-scoring gameweek, all eight of the remaining teams scored over 60 matchpoints. In this one, AFC Chester won by a slim 74-70 and went through to face All Star Gunnners in the Semi-Final. The Semis are as far as either have got in this competition, the one tourney that Wives’ Fave haven’t yet won. Suffice to say, they can’t both get there this season, but one of them will at least get to the Third Round.
All Star Gunners #3 -v- Flubbing Yanks #30
The 2023 runners-up begin a new attempt with a matchup against one of five newcomers to the tournament. Flubbing Yanks had a difficult start to the season, but look like turning it around. They’ve won four of the last seven (including last week’s high-scoring win over their League Two rivals).
ASG often have trouble getting past the Second Round, but as the #3 ranked team at this point they look like they’ve got a squad capable of going all the way. Their first hurdle will be getting past Flubbing Yanks, who aren’t as weak as their Best-ish ranking might have you believe. In seven gameweeks this season they have scored better ASG, including three of the last four!
Alleviate the Tedium #8 -v- Peltier #2 – League One Rivals
Now third and first in League One, these two top-ten-ranked teams will meet each other in the League once again before their GW23 Cup tie. Previously:
GW4: Alleviate the Tedium 39-23 Peltier
GW13: Alleviate the Tedium 29-38 Peltier
GW22: Alleviate the Tedium ??-?? Peltier
GW23: BFFA Cup Round Two
Previously in the Cup, Peltier haven’t had luck on their side. Played three, lost three, all in the Second Round. While ATT won their first Cup match, knocking out Route 57 (who went on to be Premier League runners-up that season), before going out to De Bruyne Trousers 54-50 in R3.
Bigger than Brolin #26 -v- Goleta Hotspur #21 – First match since March 2018
The Championship, Season 4: Bigger than Brolin won 1, Goleta won 2, 1 game drawn. Since then, BtB have won the BFFA Cup (2021) and the IML (2022) and Goleta Hotspur won the League Two title and made it as far as the Cup Semi-Finals last season, losing to the winners StillluvQPR.
De Bruyne Trousers #5 -v- IB Lausig #24 – All-Championship matchup
The only all-Championship face-off in this season’s Second Round has the current league leaders against the team that were top at this point last season (albeit moving upto first with a GW20 win). DBT’s rise to the Championship has been amazing, earning promotion in back-to-back seasons and look like going up again in May. IB Lausig are demonstrating the nominative determinism hypothesis with a lousy season so far.
There will be a demonstrative preview this weekend (Gameweek 22) when the two meet again in the League. So far they have both taken three points from the other with big margins (GW4: 15-39 & GW13: 65-33), and since that match they have both outscored the other three times (and matched in GW18 with 46 each). They have both won three of the last four in the league, so there’s no way of telling which way this will go when the calendars are flipped over to February.
El Dude Bros #17 -v- BattleVAR Galático #13
For those who give too much regard to league tables, beware. These two may be the furthest apart by position (7th Prem v 8th L2), but note how well BattleVAR have been scoring. They are third in L2 by matchpoints (and just one fantasy point less than Tino’s Leg.) and scoring better than El D.B.
El Dude have been shot down by BattleVAR in the Cup before – in the Third Round of the 2021 BFFA Cup, El Dude Brothers were knocked out in a three-point loss to the Galacticos (L 39-42). But the season after, El Dude got the better of B-VAR three times out of four, including an 108-55 rout on the final gameweek of the regular season.
Gloopy Yarbles #1 -v- East Loop United #38
After knocking out Premier League’s Gnonto Seed, ELU have been presented with an even-more difficult top tier opposition. Favourites to go all the way in this tournament, Gloopy Yarbles have hardly put a foot wrong all season. They won the Champions League, are twelve points clear at the top of the Premier League and have only lost five games from thirty-one this season.
This game will present the biggest difference in rank of this Second Round (currently 37 places and 378FPts apart, ~19FPts per week), and Cup history is not on ELU’s side either. They met in both of the Season 7 BFFA Cups (doubled up due to the abandonment of the 2020 Champions League). In the Winter Cup, The Yarbles knocked ELU out in the Third Round, victorious in a 51-41 win, then fourteen weeks later did it again the R2 of the Spring Cup, 54-48. Gloopy went all the way to the Final in 2021, losing out to Bigger than Brolin (59-43) in the Final. Amazingly, ELU also met the same fate in 2017, losing 44-40 to BtB in the Final.
Jaysokker #20 -v- AI-Jiggery-Pokery #32 – An all-League Two tie
This is a fixture that is ongoing as I write. In GW3 Jaysokker won 24-19, in GW12 AI-Jiggery-Pokery won 34-28, and now this week they go into a third matchup just three points apart. Jaysokker are looking at automatic promotion while AIJP are just a win or two from the playoffs. Still a long way to go.
Luckily in the BFFA, Cup fixtures do not massively impact on League prep. It does however mean that GW24 is doubly important and focus on transfers will increase, especially with Jaysokker reeling from multiple injury issues.
mighty Fine #22 -v- Smash & Grab #15 – 26th Mighty-Smash matchup
Both former BFFA Cup champions, they have played each other twenty-four times previously, with equal success – W12, L12. This week in the Premier League is match #25. The lineups have been confirmed and they have Kluivert v Palmer, Ramsdale v Højlund and Robertson v Wood. Should be exciting!
Previously this season, MFF won both games against S&G –
GW3: mighty Fine 34-30 Smash & Grab
GW12: mighty Fine 33-26 Smash & Grab
And in a previous BFFA Cup match, a 2023 BFFA Cup Semi-Final, Mighty Fine Feeling thrashed Smash & Grab 65-34. Mighty Fine Feeling won the BFFA Cup that year. Four years prior, S&G beat Gnonto Seed 79-59 in the 2019 BFFA Cup Final. They have won more BFFA Cup games than any other team, past and present – 19 wins, and scored more points than any other too – 1459 Cup fantasy points. For comparison, mighty Fine are sixth all-time on both scales.
Partey Time FC #34 -v- Boudi’s Crew #6 – Another all-League Two tie
The League Two leaders, Boudi’s Crew, are experiencing a completely opposite season to last year. Top of the league rather than bottom, climbing the World Rankings rather than falling, and riding the Best-ish top-ten throughout the season, Boudi’s Crew are an intimidating team to face. The silver lining for rookies Partey Time is that they have some direct influence on the League Two waivers during this very important transfer window. Currently seventh, Partey Time have just signed Morgan Gibbs-White (3 goals and 3 assists in the last six) and are in a good position to collect more appealing signatures before the end of January.
Preliminary Version #10 -v- SkyPlayerinFPL #7 – First meeting
Both are currently fifth after falling from first. Both have won eleven, SkyPlayer have drawn one (GW20). This will be their first match against each other, and they might both still be ranked in the top ten when GW23 comes around.
Both teams also lost their first BFFA Cup game, going out in the Second Round (Prelim in 2023, SkyPlayer in 2024). Preliminary Version improved last year with a short run that took them as far as the Quarter-Finals, where they went out to the 2023 Champions League champions Sporting Wicker Park.
Route 57 FC #9 -v- Barons FC #13 – 15th matchup
There have been a few back-and-forths between these two since their first match in Season 6. Route 57 took the first game 36-20. That was followed by a Barons win, then R57, then Barons again. Last season, all four league meetings went the way of Route 57, the season before that all four PL games went to the Barons. They’ve both won one-pointers over the other and overall it’s seven wins apiece. Who knows which way this one will go? Both have got as far as the Quarter-Finals, but no further…yet.
Shams army =#17 -v- Sporting KhilMaan =#17 – Another all-League Two tie
After twenty matches, Shams Army and Sporting KhilMaan have identical tallies (787FPts each), but they are six points apart in second and fifth. So it goes.
Gameweek 2: Shams army 47-43 Sporting KhilMaan
Gameweek 11: Shams army 35-44 Sporting KhilMaan
Gameweek 20: Shams army 44-18 Sporting KhilMaan
It will be Sporting KM’s first BFFA Cup, but the Army have done this once before. The first thing they did was to knockout the reigning champions Mighty Fine Feeling in the First Round. The next thing they did was to KO two-time Semi-Finalists FC Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, they were then eliminated themselves by fellow rookies The Phenoms.
Slots Fired #11 -v- Whiskey De Bruyne #28 – First meeting
There’s a risk that these two may be swapping leagues in the next offseason, but for now there’s a Cup to think about. The League One league leaders Slots FIred may be enjoying the limelight right now, but the Cup has been a dark cloud that forms over them every February. Only once in six attempts have they won a Second Round match, and that was followed by L1 rivals AFC Chester dumping them out in R3. Later that season Chester went up as L1 champions, Slots Fired went up as runners-up.
The following season, in the First Round of the 2024, AFC Chester met and fell to Whiskey De Bruyne. It was the second time in consecutive seasons that WDB had won in the First Round and in both campaigns they were eliminated in Round 3. This season WDB avoided the First Round on a tiebreaker and they enter the tournament with a very difficult tie against a very in-form team.
Tino’s Legacy #12 -v- The Phenoms #16 – First meeting
Both 4th placed in the respective Leagues this evening. The Phenoms of League One, who finished 4th in League Two last season, are W12 D1 L7 presently. Their slightly-better-scoring opponents are in that promotion-chasing position with W11 L9. This will be the first meeting between the two clubs. It will also be the first BFFA Cup for Tino’s Legacy (great name) and they are up against a team that made the last eight last season. Last year, The Phenoms saw off Bigger than Brolin and Shams army but couldn’t quite get past originals Goleta Hotspur, losing by just one matchpoint (43-42).
Vanishing Spray FC #36 -v- Atletico Topo Chico #23
Finally, these two have met four times before, all in last season’s Championship. All four were won by Spray, who finished the season as Runners-Up. In the Cup, both teams are batting roughly .500 – Vanishing Spray are W12L11 and ATC are W5L5. Spray have reached four Quarter-Finals, winning one; ATC made it to the Quarters last season, but knocked out by HLAB. Both sides profited from Dominic Solanke’s fourth-minute opener last week and even though Spurs lost, Spray and ATC went through. Of course, if both teams play him (or Enzo Fernandez) next week, then they will be playing on a narrower field.
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