Fun/Games Challenge Cup 2020

[Mr Tree]

Keep plugging away @Ian, these blokes in the twilight of their careers don't know they were born, just keep doing the same thing and I'm sure it'll come good

[smoggy90]

1 hour ago, Kanegan said:

I maybe the exception then, I am doing alright so far. 😀

Same here mate. Europa league was a disaster but league campaign started ok so far. 

[Kanegan]

37 minutes ago, smoggy90 said:

Same here mate. Europa league was a disaster but league campaign started ok so far. 

Europa was a nightmare all right. Got my ass handed by Stevie's boys.

[Scratch]

12 hours ago, samhardy said:

One of my finest moments I must say.

It was peak samhardy for sure! 😄

Absolutely brutal challenge... Co-incidentally, also the last time I played in a challenge... 

[Ashez]

I love challenges when the chance of everyone getting sacked is high, they make fascinating viewing! 

[Scratch]

1 hour ago, Ashez said:

I love challenges when the chance of everyone getting sacked is high, they make fascinating viewing! 

Yeah, I actually enjoyed playing it too (really was just a co-incidence that I never played in a challenge after that). Certainly adds another level to the challenge.

[Mr Tree]

Wow, getting that squad rebuilt in 10 days is hectic, huh! The good news is that I managed to get two ex-Brentford players

[gunnersaur]

I should have it started by now but loads of time...last question start date does it have to be the northern Irish start date or can we use another countries?like northern Ireland a starts on July 1st and Germany's starts on June 21st

[Woody]

On 05/08/2020 at 02:38, Ashez said:

I love challenges when the chance of everyone getting sacked is high, they make fascinating viewing! 

I must of dodged the sack 5 times already. 

Problem is when you have European games, you end up playing less league games than everyone else so you sit near the bottom for ages untill you catch up your games.

This is a massive bug because the board think your doing shit  because of your league position so your under threat of the sack constantly.

[Woody]

3 hours ago, gunnersaur said:

I should have it started by now but loads of time...last question start date does it have to be the northern Irish start date or can we use another countries?like northern Ireland a starts on July 1st and Germany's starts on June 21st

Its by the start of your 1st competitive game in Ireland.

[samhardy]

5 hours ago, gunnersaur said:

I should have it started by now but loads of time...last question start date does it have to be the northern Irish start date or can we use another countries?like northern Ireland a starts on July 1st and Germany's starts on June 21st

You can use another country’s start date as long as it’s within the same season, so June is fine. I don’t think it’ll make any difference to the available players but a few extra days can only be a good thing

You couldn’t use the start date of something like Republic of Ireland though which is February meaning it would have to end one Northern Irish season to get to the one we’re playing for the challenge.

[samhardy]

12 hours to go until the deadline. Just @gunnersaur left to submit results.

[samhardy]

Challenge Cup Quarter-Finals - Results

As we all know everyone loves a good semi and that is what was at stake this week. There are only 4 spots available though and with all the results in let’s have a look who’s going through and who’s journey ends at this stage.

This was one of the weirdest set of results I’ve seen on vibe in a while with 2 exceptional performances, 2 good ones, 3 disasters and a decent showing. Which result belonged to which participant though?!

@Ian v @Mr Tree

The competition was immediately blown wide open when tournament favourite Ian submitted early in the week, with what was a (in his own words) total disaster. In fact it was a miracle that he wasn’t sacked before the end of the season. Ian slumped to a miserable 9th place in the league with Linfield, probably only being saved by picking up a few more wins after dropping into the relegation section of the league for the second half of the season. Only 7 goals scored in Europe as well but a slight consolation came when he won the Irish Champions Cup to earn an extra 20 points, but surely he’s at least 100 points short here in what is probably the easiest top division in the game.

Tree announced earlier in the tournament that this was the match he wanted. However... As mentioned above there were 3 disasters this week and another one of those was courtesy of Tree! He failed to see out the season being remarkably sacked in January, interestingly whilst in 6th place so the Linfield board weren’t as patient with him as they were with Ian. Only 38 points arrived from the league which was reduced by a negative GD, and unfortunately no success in the cup arrived either.

An absolute horror show of a match this one and I’m sure Ian is wondering how on Earth he has managed to squeeze through and I can’t imagine the remaining competitors will be thrilled with this either as it was such a great opportunity to knock him out.

Result: 72-41

@Woody v @Kanegan

Let’s get the third and final disaster of the week out of the way here and sadly Kanegan was disqualified early doors meaning Woody was immediately our first name in the semi finals, providing he didn’t break any of the rules either. But in all likelihood the D/Q wouldn’t have made much difference here anyway as Woody put in a stunning performance with Linfield.

He got absolutely everything out of his golden oldies and fought off Glentoran in a tight title race to win the league. Not a particularly great GD with +25 but he had a perfect record in the cups, claiming each and every one of the tinpot cup competitions Northern Ireland has to offer to earn more points from them than anyone else has in total so far. He also made it to the group stages of the Europa League, scoring 24 goals in the process.

I expected this to be a high scoring round, and Woody delivered and will face Ian in the semi finals.

Result: 201-0

@gunnersaur v @Jsavfc

This was a quality affair and although the scores weren’t as impressive as Woody’s they were still good efforts. Villa submitted first and won the league with Linfield, extremely convincingly as well totalling 79 points and a +39GD. Solid stuff and to add to this he claimed 2 of the 4 domestic cups as well, adding a crucial 40 points to his total. He didn’t manage to get very far in Europe, but another 10 goals meant 10 more points to add to his total which ended up as a very respectable 168.

Gunnersaur matched his opponent by winning the league, again with Linfield but didn’t do so as convincingly, finishing top with 66 points and a GD of 20. A couple of hammerings in Europe meant that campaign ended early, but he squeezed 7 points out of it to leave his total at 93 at this stage.

What this means is that Gunnersaur would qualify if he managed to do a Woody and win all 4 domestic cups...

He could only manage the one and falls short. Well done to Villa who gets a semi and will face the winner of our next match.

Result: 113-168

@smoggy90 v @Cockers2505

Smog was the only participant this week not to choose Linfield, instead opting for their Belfast rivals Crusaders, and put in his usual solid performance. He especially enjoyed a prolific league campaign, finishing with 84 points and a 40GD to have a great platform to build on. He will have been disappointed with what accompanied that though, with only one solitary goal in Europe and one cup as well. 145 was the total which is decent overall and would be tough for Cockers to beat.

But... Cockers came out of nowhere to produce the performance of the week by a distance! He absolutely obliterated the Northern Irish league, which is what I’m sure it’s in the game for, clearly going all out attack scoring a massive 109 goals in the process with a ridiculous goal difference of 74. He didn’t win all 4 cups, falling short in one of them but claimed the other 3 along with 14 goals in Europe. Quite simply this blew Smoggy out of the water with only really Woody rivalling his score this week.

Huge well done to him and he will face Villa for a place in the final.

Result: 145-242

 

Here is a recap of the results:

Honestly I was expecting most of the totals in this round to be around 180+ but it proved a trickier challenge than it first looked. Brilliant from Woody and Cockers though, will they be able to keep it up in the next round?

Here’s how the tournament is shaping up:

 

FoxBet will be returning tomorrow giving their latest odds which should be interesting after this round and also a review of this and preview of the semi finals. So that is something to *look forward to.

*dread

Thanks for reading and commiserations to those who have been knocked out. For the semi finalists the challenge will be up on Wednesday.

[Rob]

Excellent round that. Ian, you lucky so and so! 

[JamesVilla]

Delighted to get through to the semi finals, that was abit close for comfort though! 

@Cockers2505 team Italy going against each other now then! I just hope and pray this round was a one off for you haha! 

[Mr Tree]

Damn! How did some of you do that? I thought my solid 4-4-2 would be good and thought I recruited well - there weren't many options! Maybe a re-think needed... We went top but we were so poor at the back, and a couple of poundings by those around us got me the quick trigger.

Good fun as always, another participation certificate for me to frame, and one day I'll work out how to play this game properly

[Ian]

14 minutes ago, Rob said:

Excellent round that. Ian, you lucky so and so! 

Yes I can’t believe I’m still in this tbh. Commiserations @Mr Tree but I was honestly planning to congratulate you all week. 

I committed to a system, brought my players in thinking they’d be good for the league but just couldn’t get it working. With the 20 player limit and going three at the back without full backs/ wing backs meant I was limited in what changes I could make. I had the board being deeply saddened by my performance thing and twice we had the supporters protesting to have me sacked and I was just waiting for it but it never came. Totally shite really and I don’t hold out much hope now for this tournament.

Excellent write up as usual @samhardy.

Luckily I don’t have any saves really ongoing at the moment so I can just test a few things out over the next few days to hopefully improve my chances in the semi.

[Woody]

@Kanegan you banana....what did you do wrong? 😂

Well don everyone and unlucky to those eliminated. @Cockers2505 that was a cracking score mate.

Just out of interest if anyone is bothered, i used my TT tactic from my run with Ian, Foxy and Rob and the 3 lads loved the Irish league.

Spoiler

 

97 goals between them is nuts.

 

 

[Kanegan]

Congrats @Woody and all others.

I screwed up big time. I mistakenly holidayed two whole months as i was in the midst of something while playing the game and i normally holiday between matches to move fast but didn't realise that it was not next match and it was whole month and then without realising i did it again.

So, massive screw up on my part. Sorry guys. 

[gunnersaur]

Best of luck lads will be looking forward to seeing who wins keep it up lads 

[JamesVilla]

13 minutes ago, Ian said:

Yes I can’t believe I’m still in this tbh. Commiserations @Mr Tree but I was honestly planning to congratulate you all week. 

I committed to a system, brought my players in thinking they’d be good for the league but just couldn’t get it working. With the 20 player limit and going three at the back without full backs/ wing backs meant I was limited in what changes I could make. I had the board being deeply saddened by my performance thing and twice we had the supporters protesting to have me sacked and I was just waiting for it but it never came. Totally shite really and I don’t hold out much hope now for this tournament.

Excellent write up as usual @samhardy.

Luckily I don’t have any saves really ongoing at the moment so I can just test a few things out over the next few days to hopefully improve my chances in the semi.

I had that at the very start and presumed the worst. Was sat in the bottom three cause of European games, but with about 6 games in hand over everyone, seems like the board don't take that into account! 

[smoggy90]

I was really happy with my score too 😂😂 I knew my Europa performance was bad but thought my league performance would be enough. Congrats @Cockers2505 and all the other semi finalists!

[Mr Tree]

My first league game was 1st vs 12th and I lost, and supporters besieged the local radio phone-in! One league game!

Woody I think you've shown (one of many places) where I really went wrong there, getting old Spaniels and Germans - I just went for England Scotland and Ireland, assuming that would generate a load of decent available players and that guys from elsewhere wouldn't come to Northern Ireland. Not that I would have got close to your score even with that knowledge - cracking effort, that!

[Cockers2505]

Congrats everyone, was surprised with some scores, so commiserations for those not through, @Jsavfc let's get ready to rumble, it's on my dear friend

Thanks @samhardy for the excellent write up, let's see what odds I get now 🤔

Edited August 10, 2020 by Cockers2505

[FuddledFox]

 

 

We have reached semi finals week and we have two semi’s so big they can be seen from Space!

At there advancing years both @Woody and @Cockers2505 will be delighted to have managed a semi, @Ian is no stranger to a semi and with his first semi @Jsavfc is like a 14 year old on the school bus with his first ever semi that he just can’t wait to get home and get started on.

Ian v Woody

This is a battle between two experienced heads with both of them having taken part in countless Vibe events although Ian has tasted the sweet, sweet fruit of success before whilst Woody has yet to taste that particular delicacy.

Ian only just scraped through to this stage as he turned Tree into kindling in a very low quality Quarter Final. Woody on the other hand has shown he means business so far with a good score last week, saving over his other save file to concentrate on this event and even not being last to submit his quarter final score!

I think Ian will just edge this one with his Semi experience proving the difference.

JsAVFC v Cockers 

Both these competitors will be nervous as they think about the prize at stake. They both have this semi in there hands but with one more push they can realise all there dreams and be in with a chance of a huge climax next week.

Cockers absolutely smashed it last week with the best score in the challenge and will be looking to build on that “momentum” in this weeks challenge but he will have to contend with his VWC team mate before he can think about a final.

In qualifying these two couldn’t be separated and I predict a close match here with Cockers to make the final.
 

Outright Winner Odds

Ian - 10/11

Woody - 3/1

Cock - 3/1

Villa - 6/1

This Weeks Specials

Woody to submit score last - 1/500

An all innuendo final (cock v wood) - 7/2

Ian to have lowest score of the four - 10/1

[Rob]

Induendo bingo there! 

[Woody]

😂😂😂 love it

[Cockers2505]

quality @Foxy, thanks, I hope to not make a 'Cock' of myself and get 'smashed' (egg pun) by @Jsavfc 

[broodje kip]

Great work to the all that made it. Bad luck to those who didn’t. 

[smoggy90]

Great write ups from Sam and Foxy, good luck to everyone in the semis!