While we are waiting for the second qualifying round to start, I used the time to talk to Maid “Kora_Sensei” Korić, the creator and one of the owners of the FIFA Balkan Community. As FIFA is coming back to the upcoming season of A1AL, Maid had a lot to tell us about the constantly growing FIFA community and the format that will be used in the following seasons of the competition.

You are one of the FIFA Balkan Community owners. The Facebook group has over five thousand members and you are actively doing events and tournaments for the regional FIFA community. Tell me, how did you come up with the idea to create this group?

I created FIFA Balkan community back in 2014 and it was originally created for the free FIFA title “FIFA World”. Back then, the only reason for me to create the group was my competitive behavior, being a hard-core FIFA player I wanted to gather other players with the same enthusiasm to compete at one place. The first few tournaments were eight-player tournaments consisting of few of my real-life friends but with the help of other Admins, we grew a lot. These days we are hosting 100+ player tournaments, few big content creators have their roots in this group, we have players with esport contracts, we have casters, designers, everything that a high-end community should have. A lot more than we could imagine happened, but we still have a lot of room for improvement.

Running a community without sponsored tournaments and prize-based events is often hard in our region. This often hurts smaller games but in this case, even a huge title such as FIFA took a big hit, resulting in the regional FIFA esports scene to be behind other titles of that caliber. Happily, we here at A1 are ready to help the FIFA community grow and we hope that the talented Adriatic players will get noticed in the near future.

What is your opinion on the current state of FIFA in our region? Are there a lot of competitive players ready to take the next step in their careers?

The state of FIFA as an esport in our region was always kind of “behind” other games like CS:GO, League of Legends and other big titles, but not because it lacked the number of players or players not being good enough for the competitive scene, but because of us not having a proper chance to present the show we can make. Until now, A1 Adria league recognized the potential FIFA has, and our whole community is very thankful and ready to show what we can do. We definitely have a lot of esport-ready players that haven’t had a proper place to show their skill, but now there is a huge chance for those players to find their path in the esport world because now we have a big tournament where they could represent some existing esport companies, or even make some real-life football teams get into esports with signing one of our talents.

What does it mean for the FBC to have their game included in a competition of A1 Adria League’s caliber? How will this impact the growth of your community?

Throughout the last six years, all of our tournaments were “fun-based”, meaning that there was no entry fee, but also no prize money for the winners.  A1 Adria League including FIFA in their new season will completely change the level of competing we had, in a good way, of course, it will make our community grow a lot, making it even better place for casuals to step up their game, for good players to make it professional, and for content creators to share their content with people interested in it.

It’s often hard to choose the playing platform for multi-platform games such as FIFA, but Kora_Sensei used data from his community to help us choose the platform which will satisfy the biggest number of competitors. The next two seasons will feature two slightly different formats and Maid took his time in explaining the Stages of the competition in big detail.

Talk to me about the format of the FIFA20 competition for the fifth season. On which platform will the game be played and how can players qualify for the league? Which format will be featured in the Main stage, and how will be the playoffs be played out?

The competition will be played in the “Ultimate Team” mode since it’s the official game mode in which all tournaments around the world are being played. We decided to play the tournament on the Playstation 4 platform, because based on the number of players in our community, PS4 has the most and the best players by far. Registrations for tournaments are open for everybody in our region, and it’s completely free to participate.

For season 5, the following format will take place. We will be hosting seven qualifier tournaments, one each Saturday starting from 9th of May, qualifier tournaments will be played in a single-elimination format, with the top 16 players earning points from each qualifier. After 7 qualifier tournaments, the top eight players with the highest number of points in our rankings will compete in the playoffs for the prize money. Those top 8 players will compete in a SWISS style tournament, with the top four competitors advancing to the final bo3 knockout stage.

Season 6 will have some slight differences, the main one is having the top four players compete in Zagreb at a LAN event, with all expenses covered by A1. Season 6 qualifiers will have 2 stages, the first one on FIFA20 which will give us 2 players for the LAN event, and the second part of qualifiers will be held on FIFA 21 providing our second pair of players for our LAN event in November.

While most of the players compete against friends and in smaller tournaments, the regional FIFA community has some veterans that are playing FIFA at a high level for years. There are a lot of players who could secure the first place in the fifth season which makes the upcoming season even more competitive for the players and more fun for the spectators.

Who do you think are the FIFA favorites for the upcoming season of A1 Adria League? Who are some newer players that impressed you recently and have a chance in the League? Will a regional FIFA veteran secure the first place in the end?

It’s very hard to single out few names, but for sure this will make even casual players step it up to ruin the plans of the “big boys”. The last two years produced some new talents in our region that conquered some of the big names in other tournaments and game modes like the “Weekend League”. I think the favorites for Season 5 will be Miloš “brstimir” Majdevac (CZV Esports), Esad “esad1memic” Memić, Đorđe “McJasik” Cumbo, Marko “Kota” Kotnik, and the Persaj twins Luka and Robert from Novi Sad. There are a lot more players that could win it all, but these are my personal favorites, no hard feelings fo the others.

Anything that you want to say to your fans, followers, and the FIFA players in our region?

Would not call them fans, we are just sharing the same passion and making this big together, but for those that think they are above average at FIFA, I have a message:

Finally, you have a stage to prove that you are good. Beating two of your mates at a local Gaming Caffe does not make you a good player. Show your skill on the biggest FIFA stage the Balkan has seen, and fill those pockets with some cash from the comfort of your home sofa.

The things that Kora_Sensei did with the FBC are phenomenal. Starting a community without any help is incredibly hard and still, they managed to hold their ground and keep improving. As mentioned in one of his replies, Kora started this group as a FIFA World group for hardcore players to compete in one place. The community developed and became the most well-organized FIFA center for the regional players, where tournaments are organized on a regular basis, but without proper financial support. We thank the FBC for their dedication to the project and we hope that A1 Adria League will be the proving ground for the regional FIFA up-and-comers.