Rematch can shake up the football game space

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If you’re oblivious about the trends in sports games, Rematch has been a very popular title since its release less than a month ago. The game is, as good games usually are, straightforward in idea and premise: you control a footballer and aim to score more goals than your opponents in what can best be described as “Rocket League with people”. The game has seen a steady dose of hype and praise, but does it have what it takes to be a big contender in the competitive space? 

Let’s start with the basics. Rematch was created by the studio known for Sifu and Absolver, two very creative and successful games. Released in late June, the game created a barebones football experience without the many rules the great game usually has, and this proved to be a winning formula. 

Rematch has three modes, depending on the number of players per side: three, four or five. The more players, the bigger emphasis on tactics and teamwork, and fewer players means more focus on individual skill and dribbling. Players can either play as outfield players or as the keeper, and the keeper changes after each goal scored, ensuring that everyone is “forced” to play as the goalkeeper. 

The controls are also extremely easy: you can pass, lob, shoot, sprint and dribble. In the first couple of matches, you’ll definitely struggle with the button layout since it’s very different to the likes of EA FC, but once you get the hang of it, it’s all muscle memory. 

The game itself is exceptionally fun. Playing with others is rewarding, assisting with a goal might be even better than scoring a goal, and saving as the keeper also brings tons of joy. The game is easy to pick up and play, but insanely hard to master, which is why many compare it to Rocket League.

With the comparison to Rocket League comes the idea of esports. While Rematch is a competitive game (one of the two game modes is called ranked), its very early stages mean there’s not much talk about esports. Sure, you’d be blind not to see that the game was created from the ground up as an esports game, but it will take some time for everything to get rolling properly.

When the time comes for its developer to focus more on the esports segment, the game stands a very good chance of solving some of the problems EA FC and similar games have, most importantly, the fact that they’re not team sports despite Football being a team sport. In Rematch, players are a part of a team of at least three, which makes it easy for esports orgs to enter the game with a roster, not just a single player. In addition, focusing on a single player per real-world player allows individuals to shine: some will be better defenders, others will be playmakers, just like in the real world. 

The game’s low price (under €30) and simple graphics also mean that it will be available to a wide range of players. Its buy-once model is much better suited to new players than EA FC’s yearly release cycle.  We’re looking forward to seeing more of this interesting game in the future and hope it grows fast and stable!

EA FC Mobile finals to wrap up the Weekly Tournaments

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What a long road it’s been, but we are nearing the end, sadly. This weekend, we’ll watch the last matches of the A1 Adria League Weekly tournaments. The last game of the Weekly series is the one that started it all in April, EA FC Mobile. 

Last time, Gale was the player with the most skill (and a bit of luck), and managed to grab the number one spot in the grand finals in April. The qualifiers for the EA FC Mobile tournament were concluded over the past weekend, and there’s nothing left to do but to wait and find out who takes the trophy for the second time this year, and with it half of the €800 prize pool. The playoffs will conclude with the grand final on Sunday, June 15th.

The format will remain the same, which means that two groups of eight players will compete on Friday and Saturday, and the best players of each group will advance to the grand finals on Sunday. Some of the best players in the regions are here again, including Somzi, Shaq, Tale, and Gale, and a number of well-performing but perhaps lesser-known players from across the region. 

The last whistle of the virtual referee on Sunday will also bring with it the end of the Weekly tournaments, after 10 whole weeks of competition across CS2, EA FC 25 and EA FC Mobile, Brawl Stars, PUBG, League of Legends and eFootball. During the competitions, almost €14,000 was handed out to the best teams and players who went from open qualifiers to the grand finals of their games. 

Our eyes are now set on the new season, which will start in late summer and early fall and once again conclude with the Reboot InfoGamer gaming show in November. The A1 Adria League Weekly tournaments were a successful and interesting experiment for us, allowing us to host interesting matches across various games while still planning the biggest-ever A1AL LAN finals for November. 

In the meantime, we will host a series of giveaways and activations across our social media channels with our partners and sponsors, which means you can have a good chance of winning something exciting. 

Make sure to follow the action through our social media channels and enjoy the EA FC Mobile finals over the weekend! 

Entity are champions of the A1 Adria League CS2 Weekly 2025

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After several rounds of qualifiers and playoffs, our A1 Adria League Weekly tournament in Counter-Strike 2 is over. Our new champions and the only invited team, Entity, managed to keep their composure through the playoffs and beat the challengers over the weekend, securing the title and a €1,500 prize. But how did it all go down?

Last week we’ve talked about the intense qualifiers and the great games from the likes of Sangrija, PIG5 and ronin5 that allowed them to compete in the playoffs with Entity, our invited team. The weekend began with a direct elimination match in the lower bracket between Ronin5 and PIG5, in which Ronin5 won two matches and kicked PIG5 out of the tournament. In the upper bracket, Sangrija met Entity and put up a great fight but ultimately lost to Entity in both matches. The first map, Ancient, was close with a final score of 13:11 for Entity, but Sangrija performed much worse on Dust and lost 13:3, dropping into the lower bracket and allowing Entity to wait patiently in the grand finals.

In the lower bracket, Sangrija met Ronin5 after both teams lost to Entity on day one, making for an interesting clash. The first map, Ancient, went to overtime and was eventually won by Ronin5 with 16:13. However, Sangrija completed a reverse sweep and won on both Train (13:3) and Dust (13:2), qualifying for the final on Sunday where they were up against Entity, a team that beat them 2:0 just a day before.

In the end, Entity proved to be an obstacle that Sangrija could not get over. In the grand final, Entity had a one map advantage, but the first map was won by Sangrija, and the bracket was reset. On Inferno, Entity put up a dominant performance and won 13:3 only to lose to Sangrija on Dust 2. The Dust 2 match was one of the closest of the playoffs, going to Sangrija in the end after a 13:10 win.

This all meant that there’s a big decider match ahead, played on Anubis. After a tied first half (6:6), Entity found their rhythm and won the map 13:6, securing the number one spot after the playoffs.

 The conclusion of the CS2 Weekly brings us closer to the finish of our Weekly cups, with just the EA FC Mobile matches left before our summer break. Make sure to follow the action and prepare for the fall season!

Austin Major begins with upsets and record number of teams

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As of the time of writing this, the BLAST.tv Austin Major’s first stage is underway, and with it the largest-ever Counter-Strike Major tournament. It features the largest number of teams to date, 32 instead of 24, and is set in the United States. The tournament is the first time that the Major is coming to Austin, Texas, and the first Major in the United States since the ELEAGUE Boston Major in 2018. 

The tournament is divided into four segments, called stages, with the initial three stages being similar in format, followed by the playoffs. The first stage has 16 teams, out of which eight will continue to the second stage where they will meet eight previously qualified teams. The process then repeats itself in the third stage until we are left with the best eight teams. This means that the teams that start their journey in the first stage have a much harder time to get to the playoffs, but nothing is impossible. 

As of right now, the first rounds of matches in the first stage are behind us, with four teams having two wins and no losses, eight teams sitting at one win and one loss, and four teams with no wins. The best-performing teams at this stage are HEROIC, B8, WildCard and FlyQuest, and the unluckiest ones are Chinggis Warriors, Imperial Esports, Metizport and Fluxo. Of course, a lot can change in a day or two. 

The standout match of the first stage so far was the one between Complexity, the highest-seeded team in the stage, and OG (lowest seed). OG managed to dismantle Complexity due to a stellar performance by nicoodoz. The Danish player had a career-best map and a 33-6 score with a 3.08 rating, one of the highest ratings ever in a Major. Sadly, his fantastic form did not translate that well to the second match between OG and B8, where he had a 1.20 rating and a more realistic overall performance. OG lost that match due to a better team performance by B8.

This is just the first stage of the Major which will last for the better part of this month and conclude with the grand finals on June 22. In the meantime, you can watch the CS2 playoffs of the A1 Adria League Weekly this weekend! 

CS2 qualifiers done: sangrija, ronin5, and pig5 to playoffs

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We are done with the CS2 qualifiers for the A1 Adria League Weekly! 

In an action-packed weekend behind us, we watched three rounds of qualifiers for one of the most popular esports tournaments in the region, the A1 Adria League CS2 competition. We saw dozens of teams enter and compete during the qualifiers, but there was room for just one team in each qualifier round. In the end, three teams will join us in the playoffs: Sangrija, Ronin5, and PIG5. ENTiTY, our directly invited team, is already waiting in the bracket. 

An impressive number of teams applied for the first qualifier round, 40. This made the bracket very fast-paced and full of surprises, and also led to some of the favourites getting knocked out early in the first day, such as Ronin5 adn Pig5, together with SuperiorEsports and Diamant. With some of the more stacked rosters out of the way, Sangrija managed to make their way to the grand final, where they beat The Secret Club with a victory in overtime and a very close 13-11 win on Mirage. 

The second day of qualifiers saw Ronin5 come back around and put on a great performance after a sluggish first day. However, their path to the final included a win in double overtime against Neighbors and arguably easier games against Loodnica and CTRAXA_NET. In the finals, they faced Registry, where they won on Nuke, lost on Anubis and narrowly won on Dust2 with a 13-11 score at the end. Our admins and casters praised Ronin5 AWPer Georgiii, who was the key player for the qualifier victory.

With only one day and one spot left, the last round of qualifiers was nail-biting, exciting for some and disappointing for others. Day 1 finalists The Secret Club were eliminated by X Team early in the day, who were themselves beaten by eventual winners PIG5. The finals saw Superior Esports face PIG5, and Superior won the first map relatively easily. PIG5 regrouped and managed to tie the series in the second map. The team went on to win the third map and secure a spot in the playoffs. 

The three teams will now  have just a couple of days to practice and polish their skills before they compete in the playoff bracket over the weekend for a chance to earn up to €1,500 from a total prize pool of €3,000. 

Make sure to follow the action!

Only 3 weekends left; CS2 is only getting started

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We’re entering the final phase of this season’s A1 Adria League Weekly tournaments and the A1 Student eChallenge. With just three weekends to go, the attention now shifts to Counter-Strike 2, as the region’s best teams dive into the first round of qualifiers in one of the most popular games in the region.

This weekend will feature three rounds of CS2 qualifiers, with the top three teams earning a spot in the playoffs. There, they’ll meet three invited squads to decide who takes the CS2 Weekly title in a series of BO3 and BO5 matches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

After this, only a handful of matchdays remain. The Weekly series wraps up in early June before we take a short summer break and begin the road to the A1 Adria League LAN finals in November. With only CS2 and EA FC Mobile left in the rotation, we’re closing the season with two very different games. One is all about tactics and teamwork, the other all about precision and individual flair. It’s a great reflection of what the A1 Adria League is all about: giving as many chances possible for everyone interested in competing.

CS2 (and CS:GO before it) was always the go-to esports game for both the A1 Adria League and thousands of fans in the region, and is one of the games that started it all more than 10 seasons ago. Hosting another CS round of qualifiers and playoffs feels both right and emotional, because it is one of those games that really makes you appreciate esports to its fullest, so make sure not to miss the qualifiers over the weekend!

But the action isn’t done just yet, and neither is your chance to compete. Signups are still open for this weekend’s CS2 qualifiers, and also for next week’s EA FC Mobile event. Due to overwhelming demand, we’re featuring EA FC Mobile twice this season. Honestly, the interest has surprised even us. In the first round, we saw great matches from the likes of Gale and Somzi, with the former taking home the title of A1 Adria League Weekly champion and half of the €800 prize pool.

The second round of qualifiers will definitely attract more of the region’s best players, and if you are one of them, apply right away! 

Roksaa22 wins our eFootball Weekly tournament!

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Week 7 is behind us, and with it we are down to just two games left in the main A1 Adria League Weekly series of tournaments and the A1 Student eChallenge. Over the weekend, we saw the eFootball competition end, and awarded our first-ever A1 Adria League Weekly eFootball winner! 

As we look towards the CS2 and EA FC Mobile events that will take place in the following weeks, lets recap the eFootball action that unfolded over the weekend. Last week’s qualifiers seeded four players in two groups, for a total of eight players divided between groups A and B. In group A, Filip26 and Roksaa22 advanced to the finals on Sunday, and Group B unfolded in a different fashion. Football_Hunter4 won all of his matches in the group earlier due to him participating in a major international eFootball tournament organised by KONAMI. This saw him enter the final earlier than other players and he was joined by Boki_Todor in the playoffs.

The four players entered the double elimination bracket, and the first round saw Roksaaa and Football_hunter advance through, both upper bracket matches ended with clean 2:0 sweeps. In the lower bracket, Boki won his match against Filip. Hunter lost his second game of the tournament in the upper bracket final to Roksaaa22 and dropped to the lower bracket where he promptly made short work of Boki. 

This all made for an exciting final match between Hunter and Roksaa22. Hunter needed to reset the bracket with two wins, which he managed to easily do and made it 2:2 in the final match. However, the final match did not go his way, and he lost to Roksaa22 2:1, making Roksaa22 our new Weekly Champion! 

The action continues into this week, and will unfold over the next three weeks. We only have CS2 and EA FC Mobile remaining, and this week is all about the CS2 qualifiers. 

Make sure to follow the action!

eFootball’s journey from rock bottom

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Konami’s football series of games is interesting. In the Balkans, it’s hard to find a single person who had a PlayStation 1, and did not own PES (the predecessor to eFootball, to all of you kids). PES was, and still is, a cultural icon here, but eFootball has struggled to reach the level of fame that its competitor, EA FC or FIFA, as we still call it, has. So let’s talk PES, eFootball, and all in between.

eFootball was born in 2021 as a successor to the acclaimed Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) series of games, which first launched in 1995. On launch, the game was terrible and universally hated for almost every feature, ranging from graphics to its newly introduced free-to-play model. Critics noted that it was “unplayable” and outright laughed at its sub-par graphics and overall presentation. Its Steam page had more than 11,000 reviews posted, and just 9% of them were positive. The launch was called the worst in history, and eFootball is still struggling to bounce back – its Steam reviews are now “mixed”, which is a significant improvement.

The only thing they did not criticise all that much was the actual gameplay, which, in traditional PES fashion, remained slower, more technical and complex than FIFA. Still, with everything else against it, that was just a silver lining.

With FIFA and later EA FC having a yearly release cycle that requires players to buy the game each year, eFootball’s creators decided on a different idea: making it free to play with yearly updates so that players don’t have to pay money to get the game. This starkly contrasts with EA FC, a game that needs to be bought, yet has layers upon layers of microtransactions. eFootball still has these microtransactions, but with the base being free, it’s an easier pill to stomach. 

Today, eFootball is still struggling financially, but it is a very interesting saga of trying to reinvent a franchise by making it something completely different. The free-to-play model is working well, but with Konami being a smaller developer than EA, there’s simply no competition here. 

When it comes to esports, the game is still well-loved by professional players; some even play both EA FC and eFootball professionally. It’s a more realistic approach, which makes it more rewarding, but again, the fewer tournaments make it more of a niche title than a real contender for the number one spot in football games. EA’s machinery is simply too strong for many of its contenders, even if they only successfully force customers to pay for features that should’ve been in the game for free. In 2025, Konami made moves to invest more into regional leagues for eFootball, which might prove to be a very good thing, but one that we’ll see the effects of later. 

All in all, eFootball is a Balkans icon still, and with almost 100 players in each qualifier for the A1 Adria League weekly tournaments it definitely has a lot going for it in the region. 

Make sure you watch the playoffs this weekend! 

The Biggest Weekend Yet in A1 Adria League: Brawl Stars, eFootball & LoL

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We’re getting close to the end of week six of the A1 Adria League Weekly tournaments and the A1 Student eChallenge, and the weekend ahead will be the biggest one yet in terms of players and games. We’ll be watching qualifiers for eFootball, the qualifiers and playoffs for Brawl Stars, and the qualifiers for the League of Legends tournament in the A1SeC. This is the first week with three games, so it’s bound to be interesting.

The Weekly events and the Student eChallenge have really ramped up, and we’re now approaching the final stages of the season. There are only five weekends of competition left (including this one), and the final three weeks will be focused exclusively on EA FC Mobile for students and pro players, and Counter-Strike 2. 

This weekend, we’re starting off with two rounds of Brawl Stars qualifiers, open to anyone interested, on Friday and Saturday. Brawl Stars teams of three players will compete in a single-elimination format, with two teams advancing to the finals from each qualifier. To make things more dramatic, the finals will also be held this Sunday, so don’t miss any of the action.

Our second main game for this week is eFootball, the football simulation that directly competes with EA FC. This season, we’ve decided to shuffle things around and offer even more football games to the fans, with two rounds of EA FC Mobile and the main EA FC event joined by eFootball. The eFootball Weekly will follow the same format as the EA FC weekly and have the same prize pool. This means that we’re heading towards two rounds of qualifiers, with the top four players from each round advancing. The best eight players will be combined into two groups of four for the second stage, with two out of each group advancing to the playoffs. The prize pool is also the same: €800 total, with €400 going to the winner. 

The weekend will be rounded up with the two-round qualifiers for the A1 SeC in League of Legends. Both qualifiers will have a single-elimination format, and the best two teams from each qualifier will compete in the playoffs next Thursday.

Interestingly, this is the first out of two “big weeks” for the season which will feature competitions in three games and two levels. Next week, apart from the playoffs in eFootball and League of Legends, we’re finally kicking off CS2 qualifiers which are bound to be more than interesting. 

Make sure to follow the action over the weekend! 

Why Brawl Stars looks easy but isn’t

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When we first started including Brawl Stars as a main game in the A1 Adria League, critics were quick to point out that the game is “just a mobile game”, and is “not a real esport”. That is, of course, wrong, but it does go to show that mobile games can be deceptively easy to play, and seem childish to an untrained eye. 

Brawl Stars, at first glance, does seem a bit gimmicky. The game is very cheerful and happy, and its art style is possibly the main red flag for broader audiences, because it looks too much like a cartoon. At the same time, it’s very similar in art style to many of the more casual mobile games. But, underneath the cheerful surface, there is a lot going for it.

Mechanics

Supercell, the creators of the game, wanted to create an esports-first game with Brawl Stars. That is why the game is set up like it is: very fast-paced, pick-up-and-play, and with a 3v3 format. The controls are also easy: you move the character with one finger, and use abilities with others. The abunance of game modes and a free choice of what you’d like to play also makes it a very smooth experience – but have in mind, you need to master all of them if you want any chance of esports glory. 

Cover and timers

An interesting thing about Brawl Stars is that cover can be easily destroyed by stronger attacks and matches have a short timer. This forces players to engage from the start, and requires thinking on the spot. Sure, you can hide in the grass for a while and try and ambush opponents, but most team compositions will have a good way of clearing bushes or even destroying everything outright, so sitting and waiting isn’t much of a strategy most of the time. The game modes also reward speed and aggression, with the likes of Gem Grab forcing you to come to the middle of the map to grab gems, otherwise the other team will do it. 

Pure chaos

If you ever saw a Brawl Stars match, it’s chaotic at best, and you probably had no idea what is going on. This is, of course, not the case for the players, but the game’s abundance of flashy abilities does make it tough to follow sometimes. There is strategy in every team composition and team fight, however – and going in a fight and just spamming the abilities will get you nowehere; this is what sets apart veteran players from the inexperienced ones. Each team fight can be viewed as a delicate dance, with both sides waiting for the first move. 

Brawl Stars is a chaotic, strange, and beautiful game which has become one of the staples of the A1 Adria League. This weekend, we’re gearing up for the qualifiers and playoffs for Brawl Stars in the Weekly Tournaments, so make sure not to miss them!