Subject: Champions Cup

The draw has been made, today - the same day as the World Cup draw. Partizan 74 will represent Canada against a team from Paraguay 65778 and Jalea of Scarberia, the Canada Cup, winner will represent Canada against a Swiss team 6777.
Good Luck. This is big for sokker (and may have caused quite a bit of extra downtime this morning).
(edited)

Best of luck to both teams. I suspect the Canada Cup will become somewhat harder-fought in future (-:

yes, but winning the cup will not be a guarantee of playing

we only qualified this year because 13 teams ranked ahead of our NT had the same cup and league winners, I suspect that is a bit high, we are ranked 42nd right now, the top 32 make it, so we snuck in by just three positions

fortunately we are ranked a bit low due to our tough qualifying group last season, and should move up, but more countries will be added too, meaning less cup winners

hopefully when they have 128 countries they will implement a cup winners cup!

I agree that 13 is probably abnormally large. That said, I also suspect that Seca is going to pull our national rank up a ways. IIRC we were 24th when he retired last time; I'm not expecting miracles like that, but top 32 doesn't seem out of the question IMHO.

I also suspect that Seca is going to pull our national rank up a ways.

Heehee. Haven't done a particularly good job of that the last month or so. But next season provides a very good opportunity to get the team into a more solid position.

Congratulations to Partizan 74 for qualifying for the next round tonight.
Jalea of Scarberia, unfortunately, bowed out after a hard fought game.

Sorry Guys, I did my best for Canada but...no "manpower"...and great strategy from the Swiss guy...maybe next time.

the team I played was very good tactically, but not skilled enough

I have pretty good chances of getting a beatable opponent in the next round too. If I can stay alive till Vafir is back I could make it as far as the final 16. This makes me wish that I had kept my old team together though, that team almost beat Volhardings A team a couple of seasons back, and beat the German and Mexican champs handily. I checked and that entire team would have been 6' or taller! My team is much weaker now in some ways.

from statistics, here are the best average individual marks this week:

72.5 FC Red Card
72.1 St Johnstone
71.6 Kakaowi Żołnierze
71.1 All Stars United
71.0 FC Volharding
70.0 S.S.Lazio Roma
69.4 Die Halbstarken
69.3 1.FC RYBARI
69.2 Team Niløse
68.9 Corinthians
Jälgimäe Lõvid
68.5 Real Oviedo
Arsenal
68.1 FC Hergiswil II
67.5 CARPE DIEM
66.9 Leões do Bairro
66.1 Grenadier FC
65.9 Zitzas
Karsten Dream Team
aaalin_the_best

other than having a CB and one of the strikers being over 6', it is a disadvantage on all other positions in my opinion??

think about all of the goal kicks... that is where most 50-50 balls happen, and I would have been able to crowd the box with 5-6 players over 6' all with good striking

got a bit of luck with my draw this week again, looks like my opponent is selling off his whole team, which was frighteningly good, especially at the back, so we'll see how many quality players he is able to assemble this week, should be interesting

marks aren't everything, I beat Die Halbstarken before, lost 1-0 to Volharding, beat St Johnstone's A squad too

a lot of it comes down to the draw and tactics, my team can keep pace with any team, so they always have a chance

Like I said, if I had kept my old team and trained pace all year I would be putting up high 60's for ratings, but it was not to be :)

It is like men against boys today for Partizan 74. Well into the second half the score is 8-0 and counting.
Congratulations on a well deserved win. I like the way that you played your wingerbacks; moving well into the opposition half, when in attack.

pretty much a cake walk. this team could have been a tough opponent if he hadn't sold his team off, good for me, I am in the final 32!

there are still a lot of good draws in the small pot, it's about 50-50 to get a team that I have good chances against to make it to the final 16

Your team ranking is now: 4865.43
, that is the best in Canada. I am curious to see how much it improves.

yeah, thats the flip side is that beating good teams creates expectations, as I saw last year when my fan mood took a beating even though I was winning