Quote Originally Posted by ppturano View Post
meet only teams of a similar standard (best 14 players) ,

if you have a team of 25 medium quality (best 14 players), it is impossible to meet a quality team average 40. Meet a team of average quality 24/25/26 (best 14 players)
Actually it is possible for a level 2 team (just get promoted from level 1) with a quality of 25.x to meet team quality of 39.

I experienced myself in my main account. After I got promoted to level 2, my starting 14 quality is around 25.x and there were 4 teams with quality ranging from 36-39 in the Cup. And I think only me was level 2 in the Cup, the rest level from 3-4. Perhaps I was and am in a very competitive server.