none of them is even on my server, not talking about league.
hmm, that's really weird - but you know, you must follow exactly those steps (to accept the invitation to play TE and then go directly to the game and start a team. Not start the game at some other time).
Unless your server was too crowded and they went to another server with less players, don't know.
If you saw my thread, it happened exactly that way, 15 friends playing in the same league - we lost one
Of course this happened about one year ago and in that period being with friends was the top priority. Later things changed (http://forum.topeleven.com/tutorials...aw-system.html), it was the similar quality the main factor and now the last two seasons it seems the friendship is a priority again.