Michael tops the Group phase as we move into knock-out football and Penalty Bonus

Morning Mates. We have now moved to the serious end of the competition whereby conservative tipping will need to be put to the side if you are hoping to turn your tournament around. For Michael A, our winner of the Group Matches, will it be a case of hanging on, or will he surge towards the title? 

Congratulations, Michael! However, we don't have an honours roll for Group winners 😉. 

We have to say that the tipping performance by all our Mates was pretty ordinary in the final round of matches; Nestor accumulated the highest tally with a meagre 16 points. We can argue that the tipping resulted from some inexplicable performances by teams including Belgium, England, France and Portugal. 

So what happens now?

When making your predictions, you'll need to consider Extra Time and Penalties. Remember that if a game goes into Extra Time, your prediction at 90 minutes of regular time will come to  nothing if the scoreline changes. 

Penalty Bonus; predict the Winner

This brilliant feature is active ONLY if you have predicted a draw, which is at the end of Extra Time. Hence, if you are going for the draw, HIGHLIGHT your penalty shoot-out winner on your sheets. Get this correct, and you will receive TWO BONUS points. Therefore, the maximum points a Mate can earn from now on is NINE points. Penalty Bonus will either send you into raptures of delight or have you thumping your fits on the ground as your nearest and dearest look at you with a WTF expression. 

Think wisely, and enjoy the knock-out phase. 

	Mates	G	B	Total
1	Michael A	57	10	67
2	Nestor	54	6	60
3	Alexander	45	10	55
4	Andrew J	51	4	55
5	Si Webb	45	8	53
6	Angelique	48	4	52
7	Aramis	39	8	47
8	Nico	39	8	47
9	John A	42	2	44
10	Michael P	36	6	42
11	Harry M	36	4	40
12	Yianni	33	2	35