The Special Vartdal Cup Blog...! (29/11/2006 15:00)

Were you there? Were you in it? It happened today, this very afternoon! A special wednesday cup created and paid for by the latest League Champ! If you missed it all, here's a little report for you all to munch over....

From the announcement of this cup on Tuesday, teams flocked to participate. Nothing like this had been seen before(?)...

The forum chatter was rapid fire and centred on grudges and big talk about how well, or how badly, managers would do...

Blackpool was many a manager's tip for the title, whilst there were also preditions of wins for League cup champs Stovner Massive. Sir Johnny himself plumped for a list of five (the above two, plus Unreal Betis, the Penguin Conspiracy and, erm, himself...).

Some managers, such as Verno's Vernon the Great, said they'd "be happy just to not get beat 10-0" in round 1, whilst Spinner himself hoped to reach round 5. Personal preditions varied from probable "****up"'s (Relaxor of BryyM) and hoping not to "make a fool" of oneself (Crispin, manager of Husvegg IL). We'll follow these preditictions below...

The draw was made at 12.00 ML time, and it threw up some corkers. Div 1 champs, sponsers and self proclaimed possible winners Vartdal FK faced div 5/90's 7th place finishing Ivahavet, whilst League Cup winners Stoner Massive aimed to continue their cup success against xEROx of div 5/12. Some teams looked for giant killing, and in the two games where division 1 faced division 6, Anum Primera (14finish, div 1/1) playing Velez Rubio dragons (2nd in 6/638) whilst Hunnbakken IL (8th in 6/806) faced Media Blitz Sk (12th 1/1).

512 teams entered the fray at 12.30, but only 256 made it into the hat for Round 2. There were walkovers with both Orc Warriors (div 2/3) and FC Haugesund (div 3/1) putting 11 unaswered goals past their opponents. There were some colse games (Sorter FC (5/64) narrowly losing 5-6 against take me (3/8), and FC Zappa (5/140) squeezing past tommyb-boys (6/158) 8-7).

But while Stovner Massive, Vartdal, Anum Primera and Media Blitz overcame their lower league opposition, there was giant killing going on! Suited Aces (2/4) lost out 1-0 to MNK Etiri - King Sat (5/217), 4 Italy (6/577) pulled out all the stops to beat FC-RSG (4/10) 2-1, Dragon_Slayers (5/19) mullered Brugas (3/15) 4-2, and a dangerous Northampton Hurricanes (5/187 - keep an eye on this name) plugged godeset (3/9) 4-1.

But the biggest upset of the lot? Big favourites Blackpool (1/1) slumped out in the first round to Barca FC (2/4)! It seemed any team was fair game out there! As for other predicitons, Verno only suffered a tenth of his predicted defeat, going out 1-0, and Husvegg didn't make a fool of himself, losing 4-2. Bryym avoided a first round ****up, with a 1-0 win.

And so Round 2 Rolled on...

Pick of the ties involved The Penguin Conspiracy demolishing div 5 opponents Poles FC 6-0, whilst Scouse allstars (5/148) put three past FC Krakra (1/1) but the stronger team put in 7.

There were also a few shocks:

Stovner Massive, league cup winners, crashed out to fellow div 2 opponents A-tack. A moral boost for the latter.  Media Blitz were overcome on their second tricky tie, losing to Milan AC (3/11)6-5 AET, and Tottingham (5/59) giantkilled FC Para (3/11) 3-1!

But Upset of the round went to the rampaging Northampton Hurricanes of 5/187, taking on and beating Olsks Eleven (of 2/3) 2-1 to set up an all division 5 tie with Leaders of 5/50.

Other notable results - Orc Warrios drubbed tangmoen 96 10-0 (21 goals in two rounds - looking dangerous!) and FE Vestal (4-63) came close to an upset but eventually lost to div 2's AFC AJAX. Round two also saw Bryym bow out with a 1-0 loss (but not a ****up).

And so we moved on to round 3....

Clear pick of the round, by a country mile, saw The Spinners face Vartdal FK. No explaination needed here. Spinner wanted fifth round at least. Sir Johnny wanted to win his own cup. Something had to give. It was the creator of the game left smarting, going down 4-0.

The storming performance of Northampton Hurricanes continued, beading Leaders 2-1. THe Penguin conspiracy netted 6 against Jake the Peg (5/22)  whilst Heracles Almelo handed out a 9-0 drubbing to Korona Kielce (5/170). Porto da Cruz (5/235) beat classy opponents Real Bolados (3/7) 3-2, and upset of the round went to Ajax Ploiesti (6/968) for beating Chinnock Raiders (3/5) 2-1.

And What about Banditos? What happened to us? Did we make it this far? We did, and we made it as far as...

Round 4...came along, and with it a plum tie between Banditos (div 3/13) and Heracles Almelo (1/1), last seen sinking 9 in division 3...The result was annoying! Banditos came back from 2-0 down to level it at 2-2, then conceed one more to lose 3-2. Bah. Proud of them though...

In other features, we lost all division 6 teams - how well they did getting this far - and we'll mention each of them, giant killers all!

FK Fritz went out 5-0 to div 4's Ulsan University. Ajax Ploiseti didn't progress against Golden fighters, conceeding 4 without reply, whilst hats came off for pluck Inter Ploiseti, who pushed division 2's Holy Bunch, but finally succombed 3-1.

As for Division 5 teams, the gallant cup run of our favourite giant killers Northampton Hurricanes (5/187) came to an end at the hands of the powerful attack or Orc Warriors. 8-1 the score. All other division 5 sides went out at this stage. Well done to them all.

Other games saw the much touted Penguin Conspiracy losing out to a dangerous Evil Looking Clowns 3-1. The clowns were in with a shout! Meanwhile, FC Krakra laos horribly 6-2 in a second half demolition at the hands of Lardyuk FC of div 2/1. A (by this point) smug Vartdal only just squeaked past a strong Liverpudlians of 4/25, 2-1.

Round 5 left us with only 2 division 4 sides still in with a shout, and only 3 division 1 sides!!!

And the division 4's faltered where the divison 1's succeded. My vanquishers Heracles Almelo had less trouble with Duckland (4/2) mullering them 7-0, whilst Uslan University finally came a cropper 4-0 against Stovner Massives vanquishers A-tack.

Division 1 teams Lightning squeezed past a useful Eggs Army 4-3, despite Eggs striker Emil Finke netting a hatrick! Tough Luck. Vartdal faced Orc Warriors, but made light work of them, running out 6-1 winners.

What would Round 6 bring?

It brought us just 3 division 3 teams trying to get into the quarter finals. Unreal Betis (3/3), one of the favourites who had quietly snuck into the last 16 and whose manager Ca2 complained of media bias (probably correctly) prior to the match absolutely destroyed the Evil Looking Clowns 5-0 to make the quarters. No overlooking that result!

Vartdal marched on 2-0 against Team El-Greco, whilst the other two division 1 teams had a one sided encounter, Lightning beating Heracles Almelo 7-0.

Elsewhere, A-Tac finally ran out of steam (and defensive capabilities) going down 7-0 to DLBS1STS. Attention began to turn towards the Quarter finals...

Pick of the ties was Unreal Betis v DLBS1STS, whilst FC Babadoom faced Lightning. One all division 2 tie saw Wycombe play Murdoch Uni SC, whilst Deathknights played Vartdal. Once the dust settled it was clear that Unreal Betis's challenge was over, losing out 3-2. Both the lightning and Vartdal (despite the manager being detained elsewhere) got through 5-1 and 7-2 respectively, whilst Murdoch SC became the 4th semi finalist, beating wycombe 5-0.

The Draw for the Semi-finals gave us Div 1 v div 2 in both cases. Lightning v Murdoch, Vartdal v DLBS1STS. Would veteran playmaker Adolfo Tlahuixcalpante star for DLBS1STS? Would Johnny Puma shile for Vartdal? Would Hatrick heros Richadino Forte and Mike Popcorn strike for lightning or would youngster Jarle Hoiseth run the show for Murdoch?  


Lightning were pushed hard by Murdoch SC Uni, but despite a hatrick for Evaldas Beniusis the division 2 side couldn't stand the pace, going down 7-3 Stikers popcorn and Forte as predicted doing the damage with 5 goals between them.

In the other semi, Vartdal waltzed past a lacklustre DLBS1STS, Johnny Puma netting a brace and the MOM award. Roberto Pinho fired in two more, with Vartdal running out 5-0 winners.

And that meant Lightning, all guns blazing faced the tight at the back and nippy Vartdal. It was all to play for...

The Final!

After a nervy start and a few opening exchanges, Mike Popcorn popped up and headed home for Lightning in the 41st minute. Vartdal went in 1-0 down at half time, but made no changes. It took another twenty minutes for Roberto Pinho to net the equaliser in the 65th minute. Then the nerves wobbled for the rest of the game, few exchanges, until, in the 89th minute, Olívio Estrela put a header beyond the Lightning goalkeeper Torkjell Kildahl. 2-1 Vartdal.

So what did this prove? Ultimately, did the biggest cup I've seen on this game come down to little more than a vanity project for Sir Johnny? Make up your own minds. IT was Exciting nonetheless, and might i suggest this becoming a regular feature of the end of the season?

Anyway - My picks of the cup are...

Northampton Hurricanes - best run, best giant Killers, best Div 5

Inter Ploiesti, Ajax Ploiseti and FK Fritz, Joint best Div 6

Duckland and Uslan University - best div 4s 

Unreal Betis -  best div 3

Murdoch SC Uni and DLBS1STS, best div 2.

Top 3 upsets - 3rd - Barca FC beating Blackpool, 2nd Northampton Hurricance beating Olsks Eleven, but 1st is, for me, MNK Etiri - King Sat beating Suited Aces.

Most Destructive attack - Orc Warriors 11-0, 10-0, 3-1, 8-1. (=32 goals, 4 games average 8 per game!)

And that's it. Cannot possibly write anymore! After the live updates me and philry4n did in the forums i'm surprised i got this far!

Anyway - Thanks to Sir Johnny for an entertaining afternoon. Hope it won't be too long till the next one...