Group Stage Draw & Fixtures

The draw for this season’s Champions League Draw has been completed!
The groups for the First Round look like this:

Group A

De Bruyne Trousers – Championship
Last Season: League One Runners-Up

Goleta Hotspur – League One
Last Season: League Two Champions

SkyPlayerInFPL – League One
Last Season: League Two Runners-Up & Runners-Up Trophy winners

Vanishing Spray FC – Premier League
Last Season: Championship Runners-Up

At the top of the draw, Group A was packed full of quality. There is only ever one league champion in each CL group, and Goleta Hotspur certainly did not want, nor expect, the other three places filled with the best of the rest. SkyPlayer won the Runners-Up Trophy after an extremely hard-fought sprint to the finish line last season; DBT were one point shy of the L1 title (with a better matchpoints total), and Spray finished the season level on points with champions HLAB (see Group D). This will be a fierce six weeks in Group A!

Watch out for: The League & CL double-header in Gameweek 7!

Group B

Bigger than Brolin – Championship
Last Season: 3rd, Championship

Smash & Grab – Premier League
Last Season: 4th PL. Won their Qualifying Round match 148-128 on aggregate

Uncle Monty – Championship
Last Season: League One Champions

Whiskey De Bruyne – Championship
Last Season: 3rd, League One

The first of the two teams that qualified through the postseason CLQs were drawn into Group B behind three Championship sides. Smash & Grab have won three of the four majors – the Premier League, the BFFA Cup and the Best-ish, but the Champions League has so far eluded them.

The other three are yet to meet in the league, but between them they will have nine matchups over the next six gameweeks.

Keep an eye on Uncle Monty versus the Whiskey next weekend (a very boozy matchup indeed) as two increasingly-familiar teams meet in a third consecutive league season (in a third different league) and potentially set the tone for the group.

Group C

Alleviate the Tedium – League One
Last Season: 3rd, League Two

Housewives Favourite – Premier League
Last Season: Premier League Champions

Route 57 FC – Premier League
Last Season: Premier League Runners-Up

The Phenoms – League One
Last Season: 4th, League Two. Won their Qualifying Round match 103-82 on aggregate

The two pairs of league-mates have already clashed this season. Wives Fave impressed with a big 18-pt win over their rivals in GW2, meanwhile in League One, another double-figure win went to Alleviate the Tedium.
Within Group C we can showcase the top two teams from last season (spuriously using the BFFA ladder as a gauge) – Wives Fave & R57 ended the campaign as numbers 1 & 2 on the totem pole.
We also have a 3rd-placed side and a 4th-placed qualifier. ATT are the multi-skilled winners of the inaugural One Cup and The Phenoms came an agonising 4th in League Two. After a draw (49-all against SkyPlayer in GW13, joint top-scorers of that gameweek) and two one-point losses last season, they tied third place on 67 points, and were just a point behind second-placed SkyPlayer. Across the whole season, there was just that one yellow card between The Phenoms finishing second and finishing fourth! Thankfully for them, they qualified for the CL through the extra preliminary round and their crusade for silverware is re-ignited this weekend.

Watch out for The Phenoms facing that same team that edged them out of the play-off spot on FPts. Gameweeks 5 & 8 will see them rendez-vous with ATT twice more.

Group D

Gloopy Yarbles – Premier League
Last Season: 3rd, Premier League

HLAB – Premier League
Last Season: Championship Champions

Sporting Wicker Park – Premier League
Last Season: Champions League Champions

StillluvQPR – League One
Last Season: BFFA Cup Winners

This has the potential to be one of the toughest groups in BFFA CL history! We have: the Championship Champions – HLAB, the BFFA Cup holders – StillluvQPR, and the last two Champions League winners – Sporting Wicker Park and current the Premier League leaders – Gloopy Yarbles. Need we say any more?