On 1 March, the big five leagues begin their knockout cup tournaments.
They are:
- England – The BA Cup
- Spain – Copa del Rey
- Germany – DBB-Pokal
- Italy – Coppa Italia
- France – Coupe de France
Each tournament consists of best-of-three series up through the semifinals, and then a single game final at a neutral stadium. The only exception was in the Coupe de France Round of 16, which was set up incorrectly as a 1-game series. Whoops.
The biggest drawback was with stadiums, which kept resetting to a default (see my attachment). I think this is because I had a host city selected for each tournament, so OOTP tried to place the games in that city. I unchecked the host city for next year, we’ll see how it works out.
The tournaments had a lot of moving parts! 756 games, staggered series, upsets and Cinderella runs. Here are the highlights!
Peak Pitching
In England, Chelsea’s Petr Cech picked up five wins in the tournament over 40 innings, struck out 17 against Plymouth, and notched a 1.12 ERA, a 2.3 WAR performance for the Blues. In the first round of the tournament, Leeds’ Orlando Morales no-hit Hereford United, while Ray Trenado of non-league side Barrow tossed a perfet game against Leagu 2 Scun thorpe United.
The Copa del Rey featured 6 no-hitters. Ilker Casillas dominated Leon in the opening round, no hitting them behind 26 runs by the Blancos. Not to be outdone, Orlando Gonzalez of Madrid’s rivals Barcelona no-hit Rayo Majadahonda in a 12-0 vicotry. Sevilla’s Carlos Nunez also threw a no-no in a comparatively tame 3-0 win over Sporting Gijon. Villarreal’s Victor Tzintzun blanked Burgos in a dominant 15-0 win.
There were two perfect games in the tournament: Celta de Vigo’s Rob Dove threw a perfecto against Soria, while Real Sociedad’s Isamu Sasaki did the same to Etremadura. Except for Sevilla’s win, all of these Copa performances happened in the first round.
Two Copa pitchers threw 17 Ks in a game: Alaves’ Alex Soto and Villarreal’s Tzintzun. Soto had 27 Ks in the tournament, powering non-league side Alaves to the Round of 16.
In the Coppa Italia, there were four no-hitters: Anatole Beal for Inter over Pordenone, Branislav Bogicevic for Spezia over Virtus Lanciano, Luis Nevarez for Ascoli of Alessandria, and Jose Cardenas for Crotone over Sassuolo.
The Pokal in Germany only had a single no hitter, but it was a perfect one: Adalgiso Knoll of Wurzburg faced the minimum against Werder Bremen.
In the Coupe de France, Felix Sena of Dijon and Stephane Maury of Strasbourg blanked Clermont and Bastia, respectively.
Bertrando Castellanata from Lyon struck out 17 batters from Red Star Paris.
Cinderella Stories
There’s always a chance for an upset! Nearly every tournament had its share of unlikely runs.
By the Round 3 of the BA Cup, every team left was from the top two leagues in England. Not much in the way of upsets in the tournament.
In Spain, non-league side Alaves reached the Quarterfinals before being swept by Real Madrid.
Two third-tier sides reached the Quarterfinals in Italy: Perugia who lost to Milan, 0 games to 2, and Frosinone who forced game 3 against Sampdoria.
In Germany and France, Cinderella brought her glass slippers. Red Bull Leipzig defeated second-tier Cottbus, Bundesliga side Kaiserslautern, fellow Cinderellas Arminia Bielefeld, Union Berlin, and, finally, powerhouse Bayern Munich in the finals. Red Bull went down early 2-0 against Munich, but rallied for a three-run walk-off in the bottom of the 9th to win the Pokal in Berlin’s Olympiastadion in front of 50,000.
French underdogs Paris Blues started their Coupe run with a shocking win over Olympique Marseille. They then defeated fellow independent leaguers Chambly, Ligue 1 Brest, Ligue 2 teams Amiens and Metz, and then walked all over Champions League team Lille, 3-0 in front of 55,700 hometown fans in the Stade de France.
Your Winners
The championship finals were classics. Liverpool held out against West Brom when Albion had the winning run on first in the bottom of the 9th. Madrid couldn’t rally and lost by a run with the tying run at 3rd. In Italy, Inter and Crotone had a 19-run slugfest. Leipzig came from 2 runs down to walk it off all in the bottom of the 9th and complete their miracle run. And in France Paris was never in doubt, shutting out the Goliaths from Lille.
Here’s a rundown of the winners. Red indicates they led their respective tournament:
- ENG: Liverpool 2 – 1 West Brom,
BA Cup MVP is Liverpool CF Steven Gerrard, .431/1.039/1.586, 9 HR, 17 RBI, 2.1 WAR
- ESP: Sevilla 4 – 3 Real Madrid
Copa del Rey MVP is Real Madrid SS Cristiano Ronaldo, .472/.596/1.111, 9 SB, 2.0 WAR
- ITA: Inter 7 – 12 Crotone
Coppa Italia MVP is Inter CF Wesley Sneijder, .577/.662/1.988, 30 H, 11 HR, 23 RBI, 2.7 WAR
- GER: Bayern 2 – 3 RB Leipzig
Pokal MVP is Bayern C Bastian Schweinsteiger, .424/.522/1.182, 18 RBI, 1.4 WAR
- FRA: Paris 3 – 0 Lille
Coupe de France MVP is Lille SS Eden Hazard, .379/.550/.793, 12 R, 1.2 WAR
Trivia
The Coppa semis included a Milan derby between AB Milan and Inter at the San Siro. Total attendance for the series was over 150 thousand.
In the BA Cup fourth round, cross-town rivals Arsenal and Spurs went the distance, scoring 25 total runs over three games.
In the Copa, the Sevilla Blanquirrojos (“White-and-reds”) faced off against the Almeria Rojiblancos (“Red-and-whites”). Sevilla won the series en route to the trophy.
In the Copa Round of 16, Barcelona and Real Madrid met in the first “El Classico” rivalry of the year. Real Madrid came through easily, sweeping Messi and company from the tournament.
Meanwhile
During the tournament season, the UEBA Europa League, English Championship and Leagues One and Two, Spanish Segunda Division, Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, and Ligue 2 started their preseasons, and the Europa League kicked off its season as the BA Cup was finishing. The next top tier leagues (ENG, ESP, ITA, FRA) will start their seasons at then end of the month.
The most promising free agent of the pre-season, Brazilian infielder Neymar Junior, was strongly courted by English side West Brom (!) but ultimately signed for second-tier Portuguese side Moreirense (!!!). He’s a 5-star player at age 20, we’ll see how he helps out the team, which looks like the favorite for promotion to Liga Portugal.
Also, Real Madrid traded away 5-star catcher Sergio Ramos to German third-tier club Wiesbaden after the second round of the tournament. Time will tell if Ramos prefers non-league baseball in Germany to what turned out to be Madrid's run to the Cup title...
Okay, that's the Cup season done and dusted! AMA!
Next up is opening day for top leagues across Europe!