Semi Final draw tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 10:00 am UK time.

1st leg Saturday 27 April. 2nd leg the following week.

Both draws for the Quarter Final ties are scheduled for 6pm UK time tonight.

Youth Cup

Click here to see the draw.

Youth Shield

Click here to see the draw.

Some big aggregate wins for the favourites with Genoa destroying not-so-super Samp in the city derby. Stamp's youth team failed to show up for the showdown and the seniors were held to a humiliating draw by Genoa's young stars.

Shakhtar came closest to causing an upset, but crumbled in extra time at home to Hertha.

And Espanyol put one over on triple champions City in a very evenly matched contest that finished 6-5 in the Spanish club's favour after extra time.

Qualifiers for the Quarter Finals:

Benfica
Barcelona
Levante
Genoa
Bayern
Dortmund
Hertha
Espanyol

As with the Youth Shield, I hope to do the draw later today.

The draw was a random draw produced by RandomResult.com

Benfica vs Schalke
Barcelona vs Torino
Athletic vs Levante
Genoa vs Sampdoria
Bayern vs Monchengladbach
Dortmund vs PSG
Hertha vs Shakhtar
Manchester City vs Espanyol

Two legs, Saturday 13 and 20 April

I hope to do a live draw for the 2nd Round ties today or tomorrow.

Losers drop into the Shield.

The draws for the 1st Rounds of the Youth Cup and Shield were done live on FB just now. If you're in the FB group you can click on the links and watch.

Youth Cup 1st Round

Matches are one leg only and to be played on Saturday 6 April.

Youth Shield 1st Round

Matches are one leg only and to be played on Saturday 13 April, once we know the losers from the Youth Cup 1st Round, who will drop into the Youth Shield.

The results are in! Saturday night saw the completion of the Group Stage games, so now we can move on to the knockout rounds.

I had hoped to do the draws today, but it will more likely be tomorrow or Wednesday now. Knockout games don't start until 6 April, so plenty of time still.

In the meantime, all the final results and tables are on the Challonge website, and below. (Note: "Score = Points", "Pts Diff" = Goal Diff", and "Pts" = "Goals For".)

Results

Tables

Youth Cup Qualifiers

As per the competition format for this season, the top three teams in each group qualify automatically, followed by the five best fourth placed teams.

For the purposes of the draw for the first one leg knockout round, I decided to keep things simple and have two pots as follows.

Teams in Pot 1 will play teams from Pot 2, and the 9 group winners will be guaranteed a home tie, in what otherwise will be a random draw.

The Knockout Stage will be every Saturday from 6 April with a one leg 1st Round in the Youth Cup. The 2nd Round to the Final on 25 May and 1 June will all be two legs.

Youth Shield Qualifiers

Similarly, in the Youth Shield, we have the remaining four fourth placed teams from the groups, along with all nine fifth placed teams, and the three best sixth placed teams (minus Standard Liege who are excluded for more than two forfeits).

These sixteen teams will all have home ties against the sixteen losers from the first round of the Youth Cup, for which I'll do a live draw using the following pots.

The Youth Shield will be every Saturday from 13 April with one leg 1st and 2nd Rounds. The Quarter Finals to the Final on 25 May and 1 June will all be two legs.

Forfeits

The following teams all forfeited games due to playing overage players or not arranging fixtures.

As we approach the halfway point in the season, let's have a look at who is sucking oranges or lemons, and who is going to be getting the hairdryer treatment for their efforts so far.

Division Five

Partizan, Lyon, Feyenoord and Spartak currently occupy the bottom four places, three points adrift of Lazio after sixteen games.

Hugely disappointing for Lazio, expected to finish fourth at the start of the season, and Spartak (sixth).

Partizan, Lyon and Feyenoord are all doing more or less as expected, but will surely want to try to improve results in the second half of the season. Feyenoord (relegated last season), in particular, will want to avoid a second successive bottom three finish.

At the top, Shakhtar are already an incredible nine points clear of Basel in second. Rubin, Newcastle, AZ, Independiente and Kyiv are all chasing.

Shakhtar and Basel are really over-achieving so far, as they were expected to finish mid-table at best, so kudos to their managers Dan, on his Top 100 return, and Josh for bucking a lot of unwarranted transfer criticism last season.

Newcastle, like last season, are also doing much better than the stats suggested they would. It would be good if their manager was more active in the game world.

Rubin, AZ, Independiente and Kyiv are all doing more or less what was expected, and will hope to push on in the second half of the season.

A quick shout-out for Wayne at Athletic Club, who were tipped to prop-up the entire game world, but instead sit in eighth place. Athletic also surprised everyone by topping their tough-looking Youth Cup group, so that's a really great all-round effort so far this season.

Division Four

Incredibly, Augsburg are rock bottom of D4. Tipped to top the table, the German club just missed out on promotion to D3 last season under very experienced and successful manager Paddy. It's hard to know what's gone wrong so far, but you would hope that Paddy can turn his season around in the second half. One small consolation is that they have reached Round 4 in both the Top 100 Cup and Shield.

Ajax are in a similar situation, and will be very keen to avoid what would be a third successive relegation for the club.

New Atalanta and Top 100 manager Russell has a really tough job on his hands to stave off relegation, but he's had a decent start in the Youth Cup with a couple of really good results, so fingers crossed for him.

At the top of D3, Wolfsburg are going great guns under new manager Freddie, while Brugge and Santos will be hoping to complete second successive promotion seasons.

Olympiacos are having another good season, and Lokomotiv are motoring under new manager Landucci. Montpellier are doing much better than expected under manager Stuart, although they will be disappointed with their failings in the Youth Cup.

Division Three

Twente and Hoffenheim are where the stats predicted they will end up, but both have strengthened so will hope to climb up the table.

Galatasaray are the big underperformers so far. Sassuolo and Stuttgart had good starts, but have worryingly dropped off since. A change of manager at Stuttgart may halt that decline - or may not, as much criticism has been directed at new gaffer Feargal's transfer activity.

At the top, Zagreb are flying under Dave Inglis, while Spurs are super-charged under Pedro (who has successfully avoided yet another transfer ban... so far!).

Flamengo were expected to follow last season's promotion with a similar effort this time, and manager Carl will hope to push on from mid-table in the second half of the season.

Inter and Hamburg are there or thereabouts and will hope to improve as the season goes on.
Standard Liege have been horrible so far and are the big underachievers in D3 to date.

Division Two

Werder Bremen and Southampton are exactly where the stats predicted they will finish the season at the bottom of D2. Managers DouDou and RJ have their work cut out to save their seasons.

Everton are the big underachievers so far. Expected to challenge for the playoffs at least, they sit second bottom under new manager Scallotti - the most successful manager in Top 100 history (according to some).

Liverpool are also struggling this time around, and it will be interesting to see how Chris's ageing side can move forward as the season progresses.

At the top, Milan (expected to go down) are the big overachievers in D2, in second. The cup experts are out of the cups and can concentrate on the league. If they can keep this up, it surely won't be long before a "big club" comes in for manager Andrew?

Manchester City, Levante, Internacional, Sporting and Schalke are all up there where they were expected to be, so it's going to be a very tough second half in D2.

Division One

Villa, Valencia and Fenerbahce are all in the bottom three where they are expected to stay. Villa look to have given up all hope.

As usual, Glen's Espanyol (expected to finish last) continue to surprise and punch above their weight (just).

New Manchester United manager Tharani will be hoping to move up the table with his new signings and impressive start.

At the top, Porto have got off to a flying start for once, and will be hoping they can keep their form going all season. Barcelona and Leicester are both doing better than either of their managers might have hoped at the start of the season, while the big (perennial) underachievers to date are Bojan's perennial title no-hopers Bayern.*

*UPDATE: Bojan rightly complained that I am wrong to mischaracterise his team as perennial underachievers. Looking back through the records, I can see that Bojan has consistently achieved or bettered his expected league position of sixth or seventh in all of his ten seasons at the helm. I therefore unreservedly apologise and retract my incorrect earlier smear.