Saturday, 19 April 2014

FA Cup Final Result

Congratulations to Final Fantasy XI who claim their first winner's trophy with a comprehensive win over Trusted.

Final Fantasy XI 3
Wickham 18
Baker [c]
Delaney [c]


v

Trusted By Millions 0

(no cancelled cleans)

At Wembley, Attendance 90,000

Final Fantasy XI

Schwarzer; Baker, Rangel, Wilson, Delaney; Larsson, Nocerino, Toure, Taylor; Jerome, Wickham

Subs: McGregor; McAuley; Ince; Ba

Trusted By Millions

Adrian; Shawcross, Jones, Cahill, Tomkins; Sessegnon, Ramires, Lallana, Gerrard; Cisse, Dzeko

Subs: De Gea, Ridgewell, Moses, Hernandez


When the teams were announced a few eyebrows would have been raised with the surprise selections of Connor Wickham up front and Mark Schwarzer, a former Trusted player, between the sticks for Final Fantasy. Beef also had a tough decision between his 'keepers with Adrian getting the nod over David de Gea, the league's most expensive goalkeeper. The Spanish custodian was at the centre of the action on 18 minutes and his failure to hang on to a long shot set up Wickham to poke in from four yards and score his first Final Fantasy goal.

Ceri invested £13.5m in Wickham in August 2011 but injuries and loss of form had left him looking like an expensive flop. His goal will now mean he goes down in Final Fantasy folklore. He limped off seven minutes later but his goal gave his side confidence and had the opposite effect on Trusted.

Beef's midfield should have had the beating of Ceri's patched up selection but Steven Gerrard and Adam Lallana had off-days and created little. Frustration built and Ramires lashed out and caught Seb Larsson with a backhander in an off the ball incident. There was no way through for Trusted and Nathan Baker and Damien Delaney added clean sheets to complete the win and become only the seventh team to win the Cup in the last 18 seasons, delighting at least one set of the Okus Stadium fans in the process.

The winning manager was delighted, saying: "I feel very happy of course and a little surprised to win 3-0. It's quite an emphatic win for my budget team. After we lost Toure to injury last week, we feared for the worst, and with only one starting midfielder and our regular goalie out it seemed like a big ask. But our strikers seem to have woken up late in the season and added to our good solid defense and we had just enough to win through."

Beef was magnanimous in defeat and was left wondering what happened: "Well done, Ceri, you deserved the trophy!  Must be the worst ever WSFFL Cup Final performance with not one contribution from any of my 15 players who all played for their respective teams at the weekend. I'm in the dressing room ticking them off at the moment as the league could slip away now that Clive has Aguero and Rooney back in action."




How they got there:

Semi-finals

Final Fantasy XI 1 Aardvark Abacus 0
YTFIB 1 Trusted By Millions 5

Quarter-finals

Aardvark Abacus 2 v 0 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Fred West Landscape Gardening XI 1 v 2 YTFIB
The Dead Parrots 0 v 1 Final Fantasy XI
Trusted By Millions 5 v 2 Claymore Athletic FC


1st Round


Aardvark Abacus 0 v 0 San Dimas High School (Aardvark win replay 2-1)
Cheese Makers 0 v 1 YTFIB
FCK2 1 v 2 Final Fantasy XI
Mega Buck Bandits 1 v 3 Claymore Athletic FC
Real Muppets 3 v 5 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
The Cow-Faced Juniors 0 v 2 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI
The Dead Parrots 3 v 2 Athletico Phoenix
Trusted By Millions 2 v 1 The Fabulous Artisans

2 comments:

Clive said...

Good start for Ceri.

Clive said...

Good finish for Ceri. Congratulations!