The Stats Zone
January 16 2019, 16:57 · Trystan Pugh

FIFA 19 – Gfinity FIFA Series January Preview

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AT A GLANCE

When? January 19th-20th

Where? Gfinity Arena, London, UK

Are tickets still available? https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gfinity-fifa-series-january-tickets-54679527940

Where can I stream the tournament? The entire competition can be streamed on Gfinity’s official Twitch and Video channel. The schedule is as follows:

Saturday January 19th – 13:00 to 20:30 GMT

Sunday January 20th – 11:30 to 20:00 GMT

The broadcast will contain live commentary from some of your favourite FIFA casters such as Richard Buckley and Brandon Smith among others.

Can I follow the tournament on Twitter? Updates will be provided on the official Gfinity Twitter page. Also be sure to search the hashtags #FIFAeWorldCup and #Gfinity as well as looking up Gfinity LQE and Gfinity FIFA Series in the Twitter search bar. Don’t forget to follow your favorite players competing in the tournament, along with their respective clubs/organisations who are likely to provide real time updates on their progress.

THE LOWDOWN

Tournament Format and Schedule

The Gfinity FIFA Series January will be contested by 16 players on the PlayStation 4 and a further 16 players on the Xbox One. These 32 players will all compete in a Swiss-style single group stage format that leads into a knockout bracket. Of the 16 players from each console, half of them will progress from the group stages into the quarter-finals, from which they will contest a single elimination bracket that will leave two players remaining from each console. These two players will compete against each other in the Console Finals with the two winners facing off in the Grand Final. The final will be a two-legged affair with one game played on each console. The schedule of the tournament has not been confirmed yet but we expect it to be as seen below:

Saturday 19th January – Swiss-Style Group Stages

Sunday 20th January – Quarter Finals, Semi Finals, Console Finals & Grand Final

If you are unfamiliar with the structure of a Swiss Style group stage format, then check out the graphic below provided by Gfinity:

Are there rules regarding what teams/players can be used for the tournament?

Each game will be played in the FIFA Ultimate Team mode, with each player free to use their own UT in the competition.

Who will be competing in the tournament?

A total of 32 players around the globe have qualified for the Gfinity FIFA Series January. A full list of qualifiers for the event is listed below:

What prizes are up for grabs?

A cash prize pool will be on offer at the Gfinity FIFA Series January. But perhaps even more importantly up for grabs for the competing players are FIFA Global Series Points, with more points up for the grabs the higher you place at the tournament. These points will see them rise up a newly created FIFA Global Series rankings leaderboard for their respective console. At the end of the season, the top 16 ranked players from each console according to the Global Series rankings leaderboard will qualify for the 2019 FIFA eWorld Cup. The prize fund and total amount of global series points awarded for each finishing position at the tournament is below:

THE PLAYERS

The Gfinity FIFA Series January will take place in London at the Gfinity Esports Arena. It follows last month's Gfinity FUT Champions Cup, which took place at the same venue. It will be the first of three licensed event qualifiers to be played at the Gfinity Esports Arena over the next three months.

We’re becoming a broken record here at The Stats Zone HQ when it comes to the players featured in our event previews! Unsurprisingly coming into the Gfinity FIFA Series January, the clear favourite to win is the 17-year-old FIFA 19 superstar Donovan “F2Tekkz” Hunt. So far this season, Hunt has been victorious in both the FUT Champions Cup in November and the first licensed qualifying event of the season - the PGL Cup in Bucharest. His online form shows no signs of abating in the new year and he will be looking for make it two LQE wins from two in the FIFA 19 season so far.

Swiss football club FC Basel 1893 have set out their intentions to dominate the FIFA 19 eSports scene, boasting an incredibly strong roster and will once again be represented strongly at an offline event. Competing for them in London this weekend will be December’s Gfinity FUT Champions Cup runner up Nicolas “Nicolas99fc” Villalba and PS4 Continental Cup runner-up Tim “TheStrxngeR” Katnawatos. Both players will hope to win their first offline trophy of the FIFA 19 season after being defeated in their respective Grand Finals by “Msdossary” and “Joksan” respectively.

Our next player featured is the man who was recently named the best Brazilian player on FIFA 18! Pedro Resende represents M10Esports, the newly formed eSports organisation founded by Arsenal footballer Mesut Ozil. Resende is still looking for his first offline tournament win on FIFA 19 but established himself as a major player in the FIFA 18 scene, winning the ESWC title in Sao Paulo and finishing in the top 8 of the FIFA eWorld Cup at the 02 Arena. Resende will return to London this weekend, looking to transition his strong FIFA 18 offline record to FIFA 19.

The final player we’re looking out for this weekend is the reigning eMLS Cup champion Guillermo “Memo” Trevino. The Houston Dynamo player last month signed a new deal to don the orange once again in 2019 and has celebrated by putting in some very strong online performances to qualify for both the Gfinity FIFA Series this weekend and January’s FUT Champions Cup. He hasn’t had the best of luck when travelling across the Atlantic to compete in offline events, but has the pedigree and big match experience to potentially spring a surprise in London this weekend.

THE PREDICTION

With the Gfinity FIFA Series January tournament structure being that of a Swiss-stage group format, there is no excuse for the top players of FIFA 19 so far this season not to at least make it to the knockout stages. From then on, only four matches separate them from the trophy but in a single elimination knockout format, there will be no room for error on “Championship Sunday”.

Everyone’s money will be on “F2Tekkz” to secure back-to-back licensed event qualifying triumphs (and to be honest, ours would be as well). But after a slow start to the season, “Nicolas99fc” has started to show the sort of form that saw him be so successful on FIFA 18. We fancy the Argentinian to go one step further than he did at the FUT Champions Cup December and lift the Gfinity FIFA Series January at the same venue this weekend.

Click here for a full breakdown of the road to the FIFA eWorld Cup 2019

Click here for our latest FIFA eSports player rankings

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