Gameweek 4 saw further progress made across the qualifying groups. The shape of the groups continued to form with only three teams remaining undefeated and five teams yet to pick up a win.
Gameweek 4 Review
The average team score for this week was 293 points and the competition once again enjoyed some close ties with the match between Ecuador and Bolivia finishing in a draw. Meanwhile, the ties between the Solomon Islands and Iran and the Seychelles and Zimbabwe were also decided only by a couple of points.
The biggest win of the week was for Spain who defeated Montenegro by a convincing 56 points in a match that ended 320 to 264.
Tahiti, Wales and Zambia all maintained their 100% record and look secure for qualification.
In contrast, things look bleak for Brazil, Barbados, UAE, Sri Lanka and Ivory Coast who all still maintain a 100% losing record. Qualification may be difficult/impossible but you still have your pride to play for!
Once again, the luckiest team award goes to Zambia, who scraped a win with only 278 points (15 points below average) and they remain top of their group with a 100% record.
The unluckiest team award goes to Lichtenstein, who lost their tie against Israel despite scoring 318 points (25 points above average). This would have been enough to win all but six ties this week.
The worst benching decision goes to Uruguay who left out Oghash who scored 78(-4) points, although it didn’t matter, with Uruguay winning comfortably.
The presser award for Gameweek 4 goes to Il Dzenzio of San Marino for their pre-match sing-along of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’.
Keep the pressers up! There are so many excellent contributors which have yet to win awards. If you haven’t submitted one before, why not submit one this week?
Gameweek 5 Preview
There are lots of exciting ties coming up this week and some teams should be able to secure their spots in the first round proper of the tournament.
Eye-catching fixtures include the top-of-the-table clashes between Finland and Portugal in UEFA group B and Cuba v Costa Rica in CONCACAF.
Another key clash will be Barbados v Jamaica. Barbados are yet to register a win but are up against a strong Jamaica side who have won their last three matches and are pushing hard for qualification.
A more detailed summary of this can be found on the player history tab which includes the rank history of every player in the tournament at our team sheets and tables spreadsheet.
Further Information
We would like to remind everyone of the deadline for submitting in your substitutes. This is 2300 GMT on the Friday night. We are still receiving some emails after this time and those teams had their 6th player benched as stated in the article. Please email as early as possible as we have limited time to organise the team spreadsheets and update the score centre on a Friday night/Saturday morning.
Any teamsheets sent to us after 2300 GMT will not be accepted and your sixth player will be benched. No exceptions!
Also, a quick reminder of the format. Each Gameweek, teams will pick a team of five players to go head to head with their opposite nation. The match will then be decided by the aggregate score of each team’s Gameweek scores after hits have been accounted for. This week’s games can be found here.
Captains are required to submit their team sheets to fiffsa.exec@gmail.com by 2300 (GMT) by the Friday of each Gameweek otherwise their sixth player will be automatically benched.
Live scorecards will be up shortly before the early kick-off on Saturday at our score centre spreadsheet.
If you have any further queries, feel free to ask below in the comments or email us at: fiffsa.exec@gmail.com
Enjoy the tournament; this is the FIFFSA 5-A-Side World Cup. Accept no imitations.
As a final request, please do try and keep FIFFSA 5-A-Side chat to the comment sections of our articles.
The FIFFSA Executive Committee – President Sepp Balders, VP BabyB, VP Jaffalicious!, VP Diva, VP Blue Lion and Secretary General Jerome Cheeseoid.
