This summer sees the physical football tournament Euro 2020 take place after its cancellation amidst the ongoing crisis last year.
Physical games will take place across Europe, in Rome, Baku, London and Glasgow, and there is a dedicated eSports tournament running at the same time. Excitingly, it will be the second Euro 2020 eSports tournament, after the original survived last year’s pandemic and kept fans interested on their screens when real games could not.
A team from Italy won the original tournament, with a £34,000 prize pot being shared amongst the successful teams. That pales into insignificance when compared to some of the prizes on offer within the eSports industry. For instance, Bwin’s ‘eSports 2021 Calendar’ shows this year’s Dota 2 fund could top $40m (£28m). What will make the eEuro 2021 a success is not the lure of riches available in other titles, but the draw of succeeding on the international stages with your country, in much the same way the football heroes will do once proceedings get underway for real on June 11.
To make sure you are prepared, we have got all the pertinent information on the eEuro 2021 tournament right here for you.
What Platform?
Whilst the EA Sports’ title FIFA 21 is a bigger commercial success, many football game purists prefer KONAMI’s eFootball PES 2021, and with the Euro 2020 licenses being owned by the Japanese company, that is the platform upon which the tournament will be contested. Remember, whilst the real-life football tournament has retained the Euro 2020 name, the eSports tournament will be known as eEuro 2021, to differentiate it from last year.
When?
It has been going on for a while, with qualifying to start on March 15 and conclude April 12. That decided 10 qualifiers, with a further 10 teams competing in the play-offs taking place through May to decide the final six qualifiers. The group stage draw will take place in early June on a date yet to be decided, before the action gets underway on the weekend of July 9-10, one day before the final of the physical tournament.
Where?
Like the physical final, those successful countries lucky enough to compete in the tournament will converge on London, although unlike Euro 2020, there will be no England at the tournament. They failed to qualify, having been drawn in Group H with Portugal, Italy, Moldova, Northern Ireland and Iceland. Defeats against Portugal (9-1 and 6-2) and Italy (7-2 and 4-2), as well as a surprise 4-3 loss in the opening game against Moldova, have ensured they will be watching at home.
Who?
There were 10 teams that qualified from the initial group stages, with only the group winners automatically entering the tournament. Croatia, France, Greece, Israel, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia and Spain will all be there, with Israel one side to watch out for in the finals. They had a great qualifying campaign, beating Switzerland 15-3 and the Republic of Ireland 11-4 en route to racking up a whopping plus 55 goals difference. 10 further teams are battling it out for the six remaining places, with Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, Turkey and Belgium looking likely to complete the roster.
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