QF Results: Mama said knock you out.
Before my usual few paragraphs of stating the obvious, I’d like to make a note about the hiccup with the scores in Gameweeks 10 & 11. There were a few errors in the results due to some recalculations on the RFF website, but that was cleared up as we went along. Although some teams had their scores corrected, none of the results were affected. That is to say – everyone who won their games kept their win.
The only change to the CL fixtures came from an adjustment to Tralfamadore Zoo’s score. Initially they were given 54 points in GW10 and it looked like they would finish top of Group C. However, after the recalculation their score was reduced to 44 points, resulting in them finishing as Group Runners-up and set up a match against the winner of Group D – K.H. Granitza Sting F.C.
Sorry for any misleading results that were published and thanks to RealFF for correcting the data as quickly as they could.
The Quarter-Finals started with a humdinger between The Money Team and Boss. Although Boss lost and Money won their Premier League games that week, they both scored 34 and went into the second leg all-square.
All Star Gunners were the lowest-scoring qualifiers and the second-lowest scoring of all sixteen in the First Round. So it must’ve come as a surprise for Vanishing Spray when they hit the 50-mark. The current CL Champions went into the return game with a monster 27-point lead.
Despite losing to Tralfamadore Zoo twice in the First Round, FC Santa Barbara did enough to qualify as Group C winners and were rewarded with a Quarter Final against Sporting Wicker Park. They went into this game having only beaten Sporting Wicker Park once in eight meetings. Jamie Vardy’s 88th minute goal against Palace made that one game in nine.
Last season K.H. Granitza Sting finished fourth in League One, missing out on promotion by nothing more than three matchpoints! On their way to the near-miss, they did manage to beat the League Champions and CL Runners-Up Tralfamadore Zoo three times out of four. At this reunion they took the chance to show the Championship leaders that they’ve still got what it takes and gave themselves a two-point advantage.
There was plenty more drama in the second leg. Starting at the top, the tie in the first all-PL match was settled quite convincingly. Both teams won their PL matches, but Money’s 49 was more than enough to give them the win and they are rewarded with their first CL Semi Final.
The other all-PL QF was a bit of a dead rubber. Having previously doubled Vanishing Spray’s score, ASG only needed seven points to go through. They won both legs and next week they will be making their third CL Semi-Final appearance in as many seasons.
Now for the big one. FC Santa Barbara came into the game two points down and then won the return match by two points! The tie finished 82-all and went down to a tiebreaker. The match was decided by goals scored. Heung-Min Son scored for Santa Barbara on 58′, but then in the 68th minute of the evening game Jamie Vardy stuck away a second and sent Wicker Park into the Semis, 2-1.
Finally last weekend there was a turnaround. Last season’s Runners-Up have qualified for the Semi-Finals again after a narrow 84-81 victory. Unfortunately for the 2015 Winners of the tournament, a score of 44, the third highest of the weekend, wasn’t enough to slow down the juggernaut.
So there are now just four teams left. They have two weeks to score as many points as possible and they will all be able to see each other’s squads because both games are being contested by League rivals. This year, both winners of these Semi-Finals will qualify automatically for next season’s Champions League, but they won’t be worrying about that just yet because right now, there’s $150 worth of carrots hanging up and almost within reach.
The Money Team are top of the Premier League and are unbeaten in their last ten games. Similarly, All Star Gunners have won their last four in the Premier League and their last six in the Champions League.
The last time the sides met in Gameweek 7, All Star Gunners got the better of Money, comfortably winning the match 36-21. Before that the pair shared a Group in the Champions League in 2017. Both won a game against the other and both made it past the First Round. Money’s 39-38 win over ASG was one of only two victories against their Premier League rivals in all 11 attempts. The other one finished 29-28 in a Championship match the season before.
In the other Semi-Final the two remaining Championship teams will be meeting for just the second time, but will be gearing up to face each other three times in the next three weeks. In Gameweek 6 Tralfamadore Zoo thrashed Sporting Wicker Park 50-27 and are currently three places and nine points ahead in the League.
All that said, recent form would tell a story of two very evenly-matched sides. Both sides have won three and lost one of their last four games in the Championship and both have the same form in the Champions League. The two teams have outscored each other twice over that period and both have scored similarly too – SWP have scored 161 points in the last four weeks and The Zoo have scored 158.
Finally, you history buffs may have spotted that this match features the last two teams that fell at the final hurdle. Moreover, the two previous CL Winners (ASG and Mighty Fine Feeling) lost to both of these teams in the last two Champions League Semi-Finals –
In 2017 Park beat ASG 93-80 (on aggregate), then lost to MFF in the Final.
In 2018 Zoo beat MFF 114-102 (on aggregate), then lost to ASG in the Final.
The question now is – will the winner of this match be successful in Gameweek 17?
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