Serbia have emerged triumphant to be crowned the winners of UEFA eEURO 2021, overcoming Poland in the final to clinch the second edition of the eEuropean Championship.
Serbia were beaten finalists in 2020 but a team represented by the same two gamers – Stefan ‘Kepa_PFC’ Slavković and Marko ‘ASR_ROKSA’ Roksić – went one better this time. They were consistently impressive in the virtual 16-nation final tournament, played on KONAMI’s eFootball PES 2021 Season Update on Playstation 4.
Beaten just once in qualifying, they dispatched Greece in the quarter-finals and France in the last four to set up their showdown with Poland. Serbia had edged a 3-2 win when the two sides met in the group stage on Thursday and they came out on top again in the final, prevailing three games to one.
“Finally, first place!” said Kepa_PFC. “We’ve always finished second or third or fourth. Our aim was to reach the semi-finals – we would have been happy with that – but we played the perfect games in the semis against France and then got past surprise packages Poland in the final.”
What was UEFA eEURO 2021?
The second edition of a national-team efootball competition featuring all 55 UEFA national associations. Gamers compete exclusively on KONAMI’s eFootball PES 2021 Season Update on Playstation 4.
What happened in the knockout stages?
Final (best of five)
Serbia 3-1 Poland
Semi-finals (best of three)
France 1-2 Serbia
Poland 2-0 Spain
Quarter-finals (best of three)
France 2-0 Portugal
Greece 1-2 Serbia
Romania 1-2 Poland
Ukraine 0-2 Spain
How did the finals work?
Are you sitting comfortably? The finals began with a group stage, but it was not a group stage in the usual sense whereby all teams play each other. Instead, there were two initial fixtures in each group. The two ‘winners’ then met, with the victor of that tie advancing as group winners (with a 2-0 win record).
The two ‘losers’ also faced each other, with a second loss bringing elimination. The winner of the ‘losers’ fixture went into a tie-breaker with the loser from the ‘winners’ tie, the eventual victors progressing to the quarter-finals as runners-up (with a 2-1 win record).
From then on it was much simpler, a straight knockout tournament. The four group winners were randomly drawn against a runner-up team from another group. Each match until the final was then a best-of-three series, with the final played as a best of five. Matches were contested 1-vs-1.
What happened in qualifying?
The qualifying group stage ran over four days between 15 March and 26 April, with ten group winners booking places in July’s final tournament. Every country played two matches each (1-vs-1) against the other nations in their group; points from both matches were added to the group table.
The ten runners-up took part in a play-off tournament to determine the other six finalists. The contenders were split into two groups of five, with the top three advancing from each.
Watch selected matches here:
Matchday 1
Matchday 2
Matchday 3
Matchday 4
Matchday 5 (play-offs)
Matchday 6 (play-offs)
Matchday 7 (finals group stage)
Matchday 8 (finals group stage)
Matchday 9 (finals knockout stage)
What prize did the winners receive?
A total of €100,000 in cash prizes was split between all the finalists, including €40,000 for the winners.
