Well, we now know all 16 playoff teams, it's just a matter of seeding...along with who will win Group A.

Club de Fútbol Deportivo Cotopaxi became the 16th and final team to punch their ticket as their road to defend continues. The first of two games the Ecuadorians played was a showdown with group leader Merchiston FC in Scotland. Merchiston could have essentially clinched the group with a win but the Champs pulverized them, at least from a statistical standpoint. Cotopaxi owned every facet of the game and only Blanco Amaro's individual effort in the 75th minute prevented the shutout. José Valdés capped off the scoring late when his 86th minute shot got past Merchiston goalie Jean-Martin Swerts to wrap up the 4-1 victory.

With Merchiston's goal differential cut down to +9, Cotopaxi hit the airways and flew to Budapest with every expectation of taking over the group lead with a dismantling of the lowly Dual Monarchy. Surprisingly, Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia Foci Klub not only played a decent game but led much of the match. Shocking the soccer world, Kont Szôcs and Tedrick Rummell put Austria-Hungary up 2-0 before the 10 minute mark as the Cotopaxi coaching staff started to wonder what the hell was going on. After De Vante Cromwell made the score 3-0, the Champs finally got their act together to claw one back before halftime when veteran Dutch forward Maeyken Bastin tipped one off Treveon Coundoul's fingertips. The dream died hard after Rummell committed his 2nd yellow in the 50th, causing the fans to litter the pitch with beer bottles. Short-handed, the Dual Monarchy was no match and Cotopaxi quickly asserted control, finally going ahead for good in the 82nd on a goal by Weyland Watkins.

The 5-3 win was not enough to overcome the goal differential and Merchiston still holds the tiebreaker, making Sunday's final group stage game the one that will determine - Merchiston needs only a draw and Cotopaxi must win. One of these two teams is going to enter the playoffs as a very dangerous 2nd place team. Tomorrow is another off day before the big game in South America wraps up group stage of Cup XVI.

The Group Stage wrapped up this morning when Club de Fútbol Deportivo Cotopaxi and Merchiston FC battled it out for the top spot in Group A. Merchiston held a 1 goal tiebreaker and was looking just to keep things level. Weyland Watkins, on the other hand, had a different idea and wiped out the advantage two minutes in when he headed in a corner kick cross past a diving Jean-Martin Swerts. The Scottish side regained the advantage twice, in the 25th and the 44th with goals by MacPherson MacLeay and Thomas-VanLuijk De Meyer...and Watkins answered the call once again to end the first half the way the game started, with the game tied at 2-2 and Merchiston maintaining the status quo it needed.

The 2nd half started with Merchiston holding the ball and denying Cotopaxi any looks in the offensive third until midway through Luciano Milito found himself open in the middle, received a pass from the wing and volleyed a laser that just got past Swerts and rolled over the goal line. With Cotopaxi now holding the group top spot for the 1st time, it was they who started holding the ball. With time winding down, the visitors got one last good look but Carlin Kiley's bending shot missed the far corner by inches and the Champs won the game 3-2 as well as the group, knocking Merchiston down to the #9 playoff seed.

It'll take me the rest of today to double-check the standings and set up both the playoff bracket as well as the consolation bracket. They should be ready to go by tomorrow. If you want to enter the consolation, send me a message before the end of the day. When I give the thumbs up for the Knockouts to begin, I'll give a breakdown of how the seeding was determined.

The Knockout Round seeds are official and you may start to schedule at your leisure. The First Round is a home and away with away goals being the only tiebreaker. If we have an aggregate/away goal tie, the higher seed will host the first tiebreaker game.

As the games start to be scheduled, I will post the game date on the Knockout Round page in [red brackets.] The time frame for scheduling games runs through March 5th. If a series is involved in tiebreakers, the deadline does not apply since there is no limit as to how many sudden death tiebreakers can be played. If you win your series, don't start scheduling Quarterfinal games even if you know your opponent. Let's let the other series catch up to you.

Here is how the seeding ended up, with several seeds being determined by the third tiebreaker. One thing we know for sure is EJP will advance to the Quarterfinals since his teams play each other (sorry, EJP.)

#1 - SwampDragons United (16 pts)
#2 - Club de Fútbol Deportivo Cotopaxi (15 pts, +9 GD)
#3 - Bordeaux Fighting Bovines (15 pts, +5 GD)
#4 - FC Stolpen Steamroller (13 pts, +5 GD, 8 away goals)
#5 - Wolfsburg Dynamit (13 pts, +5 GD, 5 away goals)
#6 - VB Hibernian (13 pts, +4 GD)
#7 - FC Not Very Athletic (13 pts, +3 GD)
#8 - Bolton Wanderers (12 pts)
#9 - Merchiston FC (2nd pl, 12 pts, +8 GD)
#10 - FC Trojans of SC (2nd pl, 12 pts, +5 GD, 8 away goals)
#11 - Fianna AFC (2nd pl, 12 pts, +5 GD, 5 away goals)
#12 - Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V. (2nd pl, 11 pts)
#13 - Swamp City Dragons (2nd pl, 10 pts, +5 GD)
#14 - Southeast Indiana Football Club (2nd pl, 10 pts, +3 GD)
#15 - FC Gimli Vikings (2nd pl, 10 pts, +1 GD)
#16 - Neuschwanstein Swans (2nd pl, 9 pts)

Best of luck in the playoffs, everyone. I'll get the Consolation bracket posted in the next hour or so.

The opening round of the consolation bracket is set and you may start scheduling. Seeding was done the same way as the playoffs, with 3rd place clubs ranked ahead of 4th place clubs. Since this is the first time we'll be contesting consolation rounds, we'll just use the same rules the playoff rounds use - schedule games between now and March 5th and an aggregate tie will result in the higher seed hosting the first sudden death game. As far as naming, Consolation Bracket/Round sounds too impersonal. Since KSBeachBums came up with the idea, we'll call the inaugural competition the Bums Bracket in his honor.

#1 - FC Edinburgh Bullet Birds - 3rd pl, 9pts
#2 - Bad News - 3rd pl, 7 pts, +1 GD
#3 - FC Cackalacky - 3rd pl, 7 pts, -1 GD
#4 - FC Kingston - 3rd pl, 6 pts
#5 - Metropolitan Eagles - 4th pl, 7 pts
#6 - the crutchanators of soccer - 4th pl, 3pts, -3 GD
#7 - Not Very United - 4th pl, 3 pts, -9 GD
#8 - Slough FC - 4th pl, 1 pt

Unrelated to the tournament...

There is a WIS feedback page under the following link https://feedback.whatifsports.com

The developers have created this to allow WIS users to give feedback about anything on the website. I found a features request by nittany88 to add FC Dynasty teams to our homepages and I created a new post asking them to develop the game at some point in the future with some minor improvement suggestions..

Probably, the more of us that post things about FC Dynasty, the more they might take investing some time into it seriously. When you click on the link you need to sign up in order to post - I just used my existing WIS username, email and password. It was easy. Anyway, if you get a chance and want to promote FC Dynasty to WIS, either create a new post or upvote the post nittany and/or I made.

You never know.

Posted by gomiami1972 on 2/24/2025 5:23:00 PM (view original):
Unrelated to the tournament...

There is a WIS feedback page under the following link https://feedback.whatifsports.com

The developers have created this to allow WIS users to give feedback about anything on the website. I found a features request by nittany88 to add FC Dynasty teams to our homepages and I created a new post asking them to develop the game at some point in the future with some minor improvement suggestions..

Probably, the more of us that post things about FC Dynasty, the more they might take investing some time into it seriously. When you click on the link you need to sign up in order to post - I just used my existing WIS username, email and password. It was easy. Anyway, if you get a chance and want to promote FC Dynasty to WIS, either create a new post or upvote the post nittany and/or I made.

You never know.

Thanks for linking the feedback site. It has been super helpful for us to gauge what users are looking for in terms of quality of life updates and future updates.

I'd love to talk to you more about potential updates to FC Dynasty. Check your site mail!

Did the first sweep of playoff scheduling and more than half of the games are already on the docket with action beginning tomorrow in a couple of match ups. The opening game of the Bums is tonight when #3 FC Cackalacky hosts the first ever game against #6 the crutchanators of soccer.

As far as the WIS Bob post above, I'm a little surprised there was such an immediate response but pleased. I will be starting a conversation with him in the next day or so and will keep you all posted.

The post-season got underway this evening when FC Cackalacky hosted the crutchanators of soccer in the inaugural other playoff bracket...and it was a good one. Almost 26,000 came out to root on their boys in the Bums. The first half was a cautious affair as neither team managed to get off a lot of quality shots and the game went into halftime tied at 0-0. The 2nd half started off as much of the same until Shet Düsendorf shut the door after bending in a ball from way out that beat Cackalacky goalie Georges Müller to the upper corner. The lone goal held up till the end and crutchanators took the opener 1-0.

Lyle Lensky, who is tied for the Golden Toe lead with 7 goals, headlines the three games tomorrow as the First Round of the knockouts starts live action.

Before the update, I just wanted to say that every First Round game has been scheduled, which is awesome. We have plenty of time built in for sudden death matches since the 6/11 series is being played on the 9th...and maybe those two teams end up playing extra games. The Quarterfinals will be a good 11 days out.

Now to the action. First game involved a situation that doesn't happen often in the Cup. #7 FC Not Very Athletic was playing their home game against #10 FC Trojans of SC when Trojans center midfielder Mahon McConnell scored in the 17th to give his team the early 1-0 lead but then committed two fouls in as many minutes to be booted from the game. Red cards happen. What doesn't usually follow is Athletic midfielder Charles Ackland, instead of helping his side take advantage of being a man up, immediately committed his own 2nd yellow and got booted as well, making the game a 10-on-10 affair. With all that space, additional goals were going to go in. The Trojans extended their lead to 3-0 with two more goals before halftime and then cruised to take the shutout. It was a sloppy, testy game, with 7 yellows and 39 fouls to go along with the 2 ejections. We'll see if the clubs tone it down in the return game in a couple of days or ramp it up even more.

The #3 seed Bordeaux Fighting Bovines also fell at home when they were defeated by #14 Southeast Indiana Football Club by a score of 3-1 in the south of France. The game went scoreless for the first half as both teams had excellent looks but better goaltending. Indiana finally got on the scoreboard in the 54th when Kinmochi Anzai hit a perfect header past a frozen Gianluigi Francesco but the Cattle got the goal back in the 73rd after Macerio Mena scored off a muff. That was, unfortunately for the home fans, the lone highlight of the game. Fabian Waldgrave gave Indiana the 2-1 lead when he nutmegged his mark and drilled a ball off the underside of the corssbar and, after Indiana's Meldrick Ballett was given a straight red in the 82nd after bodyslamming a Bovine, Peer Weinstein scored the short-handed goal a few minutes later as Bordeaux could never get organized to capitalize on the gift Ballett handed them. The defeat sends the French squad on the road tomorrow knowing what they need to do to survive.

Finally, the one clean game of the evening was between #4 FC Stolpen Steamroller and #13 Swamp City Dragons in Lower Saxony. The game remained tied all the way until the 81st minute when a quick corner kick caught the Dragons defense not properly set and Andrea Iglesias found himself unmarked in the middle of the box. Huenu Palomino was able to get to the shot but the ball rolled past him and in for the only score of the game as Steamroller takes the 1-0 victory to hold serve. The series goes back to Canada tomorrow.

Three more games tomorrow as well as the 2nd game between Cackalacky and crutchanators in the Bums.

We are going to ADVANCE and want to be the biggest Bum in the Belfry.

Two teams advanced in the First Round after three games went final today. #14 Southeast Indiana Football Club didn't need to slam a cow in this game as they extended their aggregate lead from 3-1 to a series clinching 5-1 after today's 2-0 win against #3 Bordeaux Fighting Bovines. The match was red card free and dead even between the 10th and 88th minutes. Unfortunately for the Cattle, Indiana owned the other 12, scoring early to put the series away and then getting an insurance goal with a little more than a minute left in regulation when Josh Tsuruta hit a rising header to cap it off..

In the other series-clinching game, another double digit seed advances to the quarters as #13 Swamp City Dragons came from behind to beat #4 FC Stolpen Steamroller by an aggregate of 4-2 after today's 4-1 home win in Canada. The ageless wonder that is Arley Movsisyan, who turned 113 right before the playoffs began, scored a hat trick, all in the first half, beating 24 year old Spanish goalkeeper Sein Flórez almost at will. Steamroller had come into the game leading the series 1-0 but the Movsisyan show made it a 3-1 aggregate for Swamp City by halftime and the Dragons cruised to the victory, sending the German team home to watch the rest of the tournament from their living rooms.

In the last game of the day, #9 Merchiston FC hit the road and won the opener against #8 Bolton Wanderers 3-1 in front of 29,234 Bolton fans. Thomas-VanLuijk De Meyer scored a pair of goals in the first 20 minutes and Merchiston survived a red card to Ante Serioux in the 24th, who made head to head contact with Bolton forward Ton Miyagishima. The Merchiston formation collapsed it inside and made the Wanderers try to score in a congested box. Bolton did close the lead to 2-1 when Alvaro Bownell scored in the 69th but a late corner was converted by Albert Larrive for a short handed goal finish the scoring line. The Wanderers have until March 2nd to come up with a better game plan when they travel to Scotland for the return match.

...and by the way, #3 FC Cackalacky does advance in the Bums after a 3-1 road win against #6 the crutchanators of soccer, wiping out the 1 goal deficit and winning the series 3-2. Sinai Kupferstoch scored the series winning goal in the 59th and Cackalacky will sit back and await which bum comes out of the 2/7 matchup in the next round.

Another First Round series got underway today and another team moved into the Quarterfinals. #10 FC Trojans of SC made it 3-0 for the lower seeds as they took a 3-0 aggregate lead into the day and closed the deal at home against #7 FC Not Very Athletic. Having to score goals, Athletic pressed the entire game, outshooting the Trojans 23-11 and netting the opening goal of the game just before halftime to cut the aggregate down to 2. Although they continued to get the better of the possession and looks, Athletic couldn't find the goal again and, in a desperate situation as the game clock wound down, left themselves open to the counterattack. 21 year old defender John Aynesworth found himself forward enough to take a shot, scoring for only the 5th time in his career, to end what little hopes Athletic had. The 1-1 draw handed the series to the Trojans with a 4-1 total.

A couple of German clubs met in the other First Round game and this time the higher seed won the game. #5 Wolfsburg Dynamit dominated #12 Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V. in a convincing 3-1 win. The game wasn't as close as the score, with Wolfsburg having twice as many opportunities and a 14-5 corner kick advantage. Veteran Hernan Bordonaba scored the game winner midway through the 2nd half and only a 71st minute effort by the talented Mano Araña prevented the shutout. The Billygoats need to change things up if they have any chance in their home game on the 3rd.

In the Bums, the bracket namesake opened their series at home and promptly lost, as #4 FC Kingston beat #5 Metropolitan Eagles 2-1. The game was tied at 1-1 when Benoni Händzel headed in the winner with less than 10 minutes to play. The return game is tomorrow with the bum Semis on the line.

A bunch of games tomorrow, so I'll probably do both a morning and evening update.

I was going to do a morning Knockout Round update but all of the games are this afternoon, so I'll post them this evening after 7pm.

There was one game this morning out of the Bums, where the #1 seed FC Edinburgh Bullet Birds fell behind 1-0 in their home game against #8 Slough FC but came back to score 5 unanswered goals to take a 5-1 win. Dutch forward Sandro Huntelaar knocked in a pair and three others chipped in a goal to give the Bullet Birds a commanding lead in the series. The return game is still not scheduled between the two clubs so we'll have to wait to see if Slough can recover from the decision.

Two more teams have qualified for the quarters as two made it through in today's results. #1 SwampDragons United and #16 Neuschwanstein Swans played both legs of their series a few hours apart. Canada was the scene of the first game as the top seed hosted the morning action. A great back and forth game was the result as both clubs went toe to toe for all 90 minutes. Alarico Riki opened up the scoring for the visitors as he found an opening in the middle of the box and drilled a shot past Dragons goalie Jaxon Hebert to give the Germans a 1-0 lead. The home side recovered and eventually built up a 4-2 advantage when Devere Morris scored in the 77th with what looked like the final nail. However, the Swans miraculously got the equalizer in stoppage time off a Jerrald Mireles header to end the game as a 4-4 draw, managing about as good a result as they could considering the situation.

After catching flights to Bavaria, 55,00 plus came to see the series finale...and it was all Dragons. Jerrad Forko and Benecroft Noblit each scored twice and the Swans were only able to tally right before the referee blew the whistle. The 4-1 victory gives the series to the Dragons 8-5 but the fans gave the Swans a standing O in appreciation.

#9 Merchiston FC made it 4 out of 5 for the lower seed as they entered the game up 3-1 against #8 Bolton Wanderers. The series finale was pretty much like the opener, with Merchiston winning again by a 3-1 score to take the series 6-2. MacPherson MacLeay broke the ice in the 31st with a fierce header that got past Matai Teuermann and Patrício Mansilla's goal in the 56th put the aggregate to an insurmountable 5-1. To their credit, Bolton did play tough for the rest of the game, scoring off an Itzik Widawier shot, but it was too much Merchiston in the series as they move on to the next round.

In the lone game out of the Bums this afternoon, we find ourselves in a sudden death situation. After poking fun at the namesake #5 Metropolitan Eagles after they dropped the opener against #4 FC Kingston 2-1, the Screaming Eagles did what they had to do to survive and forced an extra game. Austrian forward Martel Kiel scored twice and the Metro Eagles actually held a 5-4 aggregate advantage with moments left in regulation but a volley by Immanuel Khan in the 90th minute gave Kingston series tying goal, making the game a 4-3 Eagles win but the aggregate dead even at 5-5.

As the higher seed, Kingston will now host a sudden death game with winner take all...unless they draw, of course.