Posted by gomiami1972 on 7/13/2025 9:00:00 PM (view original):
We are down to a single open spot in the quarters since #11 Kobelco United Football Club won their way to the next round after narrowly beating #6 North Polar Dragons FC on the road 1-0 to take the series 4-2 on aggregate. North Polar needed to win but, in a rare stat line that is almost never seen in Cup action, failed to register a single shot on goal for the entire match. Kobelco, by contrast, placed 10 on target but was kept out of the net by a very busy Dragons goalkeeper Bobbi Vinter until the 62nd when Nicanor Jaime buried one from distance. The 1-0 win sends Kobelco through and North Polar joins the other two Dragon clubs on the sidelines for the rest of the tourney.

The defending Champs and #1 seed got their knockouts going in the right direction when Club de Fútbol Deportivo Cotopaxi played at home in Quito, Ecuador and won 3-2 over #16 Real TK in front of an almost sold-out crowd of over 57,000. The Frenchmen were big underdogs and didn't do themselves any favors when their young Mexican forward Xever Mariano Andrés went too aggressive into a free ball and got red-carded only 6 minutes into the game. Cotopaxi took full advantage by scoring three goals with the man advantage before halftime as Mr. Three Names Heraldo Paulo Canineu scored twice within 8 minutes to give the Cup holders a commanding 3-0 lead at the break. To their credit and possibly critical to the return game, TK managed to adjust to the situation and outplayed Cotopaxi in the 2nd half, actually getting back two of the goals short-handed narrow the differential to only one.

The return game has yet to be scheduled and today is technically the last day but I'm going to give TK a couple more days to send the challenge so that we don't have a forfeit situation. Also, I have set up the Semifinals for the Bums Bracket. Looks like pubmonkey has an excellent chance of advancing to the finals.

Not Very United v Not Very Athletic in the Bums Bracket.....

2 cheeks of the same arse....?

I am going to give kobegriffin until 7pm today (the 15th) to send the challenge to Cotopaxi in either slot 1 or 2. If not, we'll have to declare the series a forfeit and the Quarterfinals will begin on the 16th.

Not surprisingly, Not Very United and FC Not Very Athletic have quickly scheduled their Bums series games.

Posted by gomiami1972 on 7/15/2025 1:00:00 AM (view original):
I am going to give kobegriffin until 7pm today (the 15th) to send the challenge to Cotopaxi in either slot 1 or 2. If not, we'll have to declare the series a forfeit and the Quarterfinals will begin on the 16th.

Not surprisingly, Not Very United and FC Not Very Athletic have quickly scheduled their Bums series games.

Still no challenge.

Posted by indiansrck27 on 7/15/2025 6:58:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gomiami1972 on 7/15/2025 1:00:00 AM (view original):
I am going to give kobegriffin until 7pm today (the 15th) to send the challenge to Cotopaxi in either slot 1 or 2. If not, we'll have to declare the series a forfeit and the Quarterfinals will begin on the 16th.

Not surprisingly, Not Very United and FC Not Very Athletic have quickly scheduled their Bums series games.

Still no challenge.

Yeah, not sure what happened.

I am unfortunately going to need to declare #1 Club de Fútbol Deportivo Cotopaxi the winner of the First Round series against #16 Real TK by forfeit.

The Quarterfinal matchups will be up before the end of the evening.

The quarters are all set and the time frame for scheduling is July 16th thru July 26th.

Four of the eight are double-digit seeds and there's a strange-looking #11 versus #14 matchup, thanks to both the #3 and #6 falling in the First Round. It just happens that some of the longest team names have advanced, so I'm going to be doing a lot of cut/paste rather than typing out the club names during my write-ups.

L'Orteil D'or is headed by my own Mano Araña, who leads with 9 goals, being two clear of FC Stolpen Steamroller's Rey Jaime...meaning World 71 is scoring by the handful up to this point. There are a bunch of still active players sitting at 5 and 6 goals, so nothing has been decided for the Golden Toe.

Best of luck to the Quarterfinalists...time to get back to the action.

The first Quarterfinals game between #5 FC Stratford-Upon-Avon King's Men and #13 FC Stolpen Steamroller will be recorded tonight as game play resumes. All but one quarters game and all of the Bums Semifinal matches have been scheduled.

See you this evening..

The opening match of the Cup XVII Quarterfinals literally went final just moments ago as the small Saxon village that's home to #13 FC Stolpen Steamroller hosted upstart #5 FC Stratford-Upon-Avon King's Men, who is having a very successful run for a 1st time Cup participant. Based on the first 96% of this game, it was looking like the new kids were going to continue with their winning ways. An early corner led to a scoring chance for Stratford and Juaquine Alberto finally got control of the ball after it had bounced around the box for a time and blasted one past Steamroller goalie Sein Flórez to make the score 1-0 after only 5 minutes. Then, what should have been the icing came in the 84th when Clodoveo Michel caught Flórez leaning the wrong way to make the score 2-0 and clinch the win...

...or not. Thinking they had the game won, the Stratford players relaxed, with devastating results. With about 180 seconds of regulation game clock left, Diaz Amorebieta finally gave the home crowd something to talk about as he nutmegged the defender and sent a good ball into the upper corner to close the gap to 2-1 and, much to the dismay of the visiting coaching staff, the English side gave up the tying goal with only moments remaining as a very late corner was converted into the tying goal by Lenard Marheineke as he dove forward to score and then dove into the jubilant crowd to be showered by beer. The referee blew the final whistle and the game resulted in an unlikely 2-2 draw when it was looking like a Stratford win the entire game.

There is another solo game tomorrow and then multiple games on the 20th as the Bums swings back into gear.