After a break for the holidays, the FIFA 19 competitive season is returning at the end of this week with the Gfinity FIFA Series taking place Friday January 18 to Sunday January 20 - the first offline tournament of the year.
Pro players got their wish for FIFA 19 as there's already a lot more live tournaments this cycle, giving pros valuable experience of playing on stage. The Gfinity FIFA Series is a licensed qualifying event that will offer yet another trophy and Global Series points which add up towards eWorld qualification.
Excluding the 2v2 league, the Gfinity Elite Series, this will be the second FIFA event the British organisation has hosted. Back in December, the Gfinity Arena hosted the FUT Champions Cup which saw reigning eWorld Cup champion Mossad 'MSdossary' Aldossary overcome an in-form Donovan 'Tekkz' Hunt in the Xbox finals before defeating Nicolas 'Nicholas99' Villalba in the grand final.
In December, Tekkz was on route to secure a historic third consecutive trophy but was stopped by the dominant Saudi Arabian. The F2 player will be looking to get back to winning ways and continue to stake his claim as one, if not the best FIFA 19 players in the world.
This tournament will provide perfect practise for him before he potentially clashes with Msdossary once again at the next FUT Champs Cup later this month.
However, Tekkz cannot get ahead of himself with some of the stiff competition in the Gfinity FIFA Series. Competing will be another candidate for one of the best FIFA players ever, former FIFA Interactive World Cup champion Spencer 'Gorilla' Ealing. Gorilla has struggled so far in FIFA 19 having failed to qualify for a lot of tournaments and is still currently a free agent.
The one tournament he did qualify for was the PGL Cup in Romania but he was eliminated at the hands of Tekkz - giving the Englishman further motivation this week.
And on the PlayStation side is Werder Bremen's Mohammed 'Moauba' Harkous who narrowly lost the PlayStation 4 final at the last FUT Champions Cup 6-5 on aggregate thanks to a last-minute goal from Nicolas99. With so many talented players in attendance, this explosive tournament promises to be another thriller.