FC Edinburgh Bullet Birds helped themselves to a much higher seed after their 4-0 road win in Japan against Kobelco United Football Club to finish Group C play. Four different Bullet Birds knocked in goals, capped off by Walker Rowena's header in the 51st to improve Edinburgh to 11 points as the 2nd Place team out of the group. Kobelco, who struggled to find a scoring touch the entire tournament, finished with an 0-5-1 record and will regroup for Cup XIX.

Fittingly, the last game of the Group Stage will be the drama of Group A between Fianna AFC and FC Stratford-Upon-Avon King's Men, with kickoff slated for noon.

The King is Dead. Love Live the (new) King.

We will be crowning a new Champion for Cup XVIII as our defending club FC Stratford-Upon-Avon King's Men simply couldn't find the win column, despite playing well in every Group A match, and was bounced from the tournament after the closing game of the Group Stage, losing 5-4 to Fianna AFC...who won its last three games to advance as the 2nd Place finisher. An early Huntingdon Hinson goal from Fianna was answered back by three goals from The King's Men, after Richard Roudet headed in a shot just as the halftime whistle blew to give Stratford a 3-2 advantage. After the game was tied, Stratford grabbed its final lead at 4-3 in the 77th when Juaquine Alberto saw some space and beat Greens goalie Quinn Stanwix to the corner as it looked as the title defense would continue.

But it wasn't meant to be as Fianna, on its home pitch, owned the last 10 minutes. The beginning of the end started in the 80th as Rebel Burton beat the offside trap and hit a clean winner off a wide open look to tie the game at 4-4 and teammate Reardon O'Histeen completed the comeback 5 minutes later when his header flew past Stratford goalie Winfrith Craig to seal both team's fate. When the referee blew the whistle on the 5-4 win, the 32,905 Greens home fans went into wild celebration but acknowledged the Champions with a standing O as the teams shook hands at the center stripe.

OK guys, I'm going to take the rest of the day off and then set up the knockout rounds tomorrow...meaning the Knockout First Round will begin on the 4th. I'll post the seeds in a separate post and you'll see the seeding number next to the team names in the standings as I recheck everything. For any team that did not qualify for the playoffs, you can enter the Bums Bracket. I'll give it till the end of the week for teams to declare if they want to play in the consolation bracket before that gets started.

Great Group Stage guys and good luck to the teams that have advanced. See you tomorrow.

Thanks again for hosting the tourney. We still have a lot of work to be competitive here and in our world, again.

I'll have the playoff seeds done before I go to bed tonight.

So far, four teams are entered into the Bums.

The Knockout Round seeds are official and you may start to schedule at your leisure. The First Round is a home and away. If we have an aggregate 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 February 14th. 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 matchups catch up to you.

Here is how the seeding ended up. We had to go to away goals twice to determine placings, which shows how close everyone is.

#1 - Slough FC (16 pts, +8 GD)
#2 - Swampdragons FC (16 pts, +7 GD)
#3 - FC Winnipeg Royal Lions (12 pts, +7 GD, 9 away goals)
#4 - Metropolitan Eagles (12 pts, +7 GD, 6 away goals)
#5 - Holbæk Idrætsforening (12 pts, +6 GD)
#6 - Not Very United (11 pts)
#7 - VB Hibernian (10 pts)
#8 - FC Edinburgh Bullet Birds (2nd pl, 11 pts, +5 GD)
#9 - FC Kingston (2nd pl, 11 pts, +1 GD)
#10 - FC Trojans of SC (2nd pl, 10 pts, +1 GD)
#11 - Rushmore FC (2nd pl, 10 pts, 0 GD)
#12 - Brighton AFC (2nd pl, 9 pts, +3 GD, 13 away goals)
#13 - the crutchanators of soccer (2nd pl, 9 pts, +3 GD, 6 away goals)
#14 - Fianna AFC (2nd pl, 9 pts. -1 GD)
#15 - FC Stolpen Steamroller (3rd pl, 10 pts)
#16 - Club Deportivo Baile Brian (3rd pl, 9 pts)

I'll do the same for the Bums participants on Friday when we reach the entry deadline.

Posted by gomiami1972 on 2/3/2026 3:56:00 PM (view original):
I'll have the playoff seeds done before I go to bed tonight.

So far, four teams are entered into the Bums.

Apologies for upsetting the numbers but Club Captain Kane Cornynn would like to celebrate his 116 seasons (& 142 years) by leading FC Not Very Athletic into the Bums Bracket.

Posted by pubmonkey on 2/4/2026 9:19:00 AM (view original):

Posted by gomiami1972 on 2/3/2026 3:56:00 PM (view original):
I'll have the playoff seeds done before I go to bed tonight.

So far, four teams are entered into the Bums.

Apologies for upsetting the numbers but Club Captain Kane Cornynn would like to celebrate his 116 seasons (& 142 years) by leading FC Not Very Athletic into the Bums Bracket.

Nah, unlike the main groupings where a number divided by 4 is ideal, any number of teams will do for the consolation bracket. 5, 7, 9 teams simply changes how many teams get byes and how many play in the opening round.