The waiting is finally over. A little later than anticipated, we roll out the First Round Draw for the eighth Fantasy Football Scout Cup, sponsored by Paddy Power – for those who submitted their teams for the Gameweek 11 qualifying round, read on to discover whether you made the cut as we assess some of the standout head-to-heads set to take place over Gameweek 12 next weekend.
First up, if you managed a score of 55 points or more (after points spent on transfers), a place in the knockout stages awaits. All previous winners of the cup have received an automatic bye into the First Round – reigning champion Wild Rover find himself the underdog as he kicks off his defence against frankm8, with an overall rank of around 885,0000 compared to his opponents 37,000.
The full first round draw can be viewed on this page.
Looking at some of the previous winners, our very own Jonty squares up to site regular Back to Back Ballacks, while long-time site visitor Goonerdave finds himself up against The Menaces Return.
Some other “old school” names such as SuperDunny, Gargamel and Shipsontrev jump out on first glance – they are set to take on RafaMC, bekorchi and flipaduck respectively.
One of the site’s new moderating team, Greendwindmill, braces himself for a clash against Tokyo Red, while our Suspension Tightrope expert Anorak will face SAAB for a spot in the second round. Evs is up against mark collier – this looks a tough one, with both inside the top 10,000 – while MissPolly has the honour on taking on Granville, no less.
Four of the highest ranked managers in the draw go head-to-head, as Accounting on Chris (8,825) takes on Unbelievabletekkers (16.374) and champskebab (6,083) gears up for a clash with nowayjose, who sits in 275th spot in the overall rankings.
Beric gets the chance to continue his superb season. Currently sitting inside the top 1,000, he takes on g-doo, who is very much the outsider here, with a ranking of 145,000. Forca Inter will fancy his chances of progressing. In the First Round, our site regular has been drawn against MB10 – the former has an overall ranking around 71,000 against his opponents’ 233,000.
Giggs Boson, another familiar name around these parts, takes on CanTheyScore – both look evenly-matches so far, with respective ranks of 30,167 and 24,544, while Germanphil (ranked 173,368) has a real uphill task ahead – he’s up against TitusShambles, the highest-ranked manager in the First Round draw, with an overall rank of 102.
With our new Cup system now in place (more good work by Ed), we can monitor how these ties are shaping up as the Gameweek progresses and later in the tournament we’ll even be considering live draws – Sir Trevor Brooking not supplied.
As always, good luck to everyone involved.
For full details on the key cup fixture dates and prizes, click here.
