Canada Soccer will announce first-ever eNational Team to compete in FIFA eNations Cup 2020

TORONTO, Ont.—The esports scene in Canada just continues to evolve.

It may have flew under the radar earlier this month thanks to the Canadian women securing their place in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, but it doesn’t make the news any less significant.

On Feb. 4, Canada Soccer announced that it will select a four-player roster to compete in the 2020 FIFA eNations Cup, which will take place from May 22-24, 2020 in Denmark.

The tournament, which is played in a 2v2 format in EA SPORTS FIFA 2020, is the second edition of FIFA’s official international competition. Last year, twenty countries—forty players—were narrowed down to one champion as French duo ‘Maestro’ and ‘DaXe’ took home the inaugural Final in London and a tidy $40,000 USD in prize money.

Canada Soccer will name its eNational Team roster based on the EA SPORTS FIFA 20 Global Series Rankings, as the team will be made up of two of the top Canadian players on XBOX and two of the top Canadian players on Playstation.

“We do not yet have a date determined for the announcement of the qualified FUT Verified FIFA20 players who will participate in qualifying for eNations Cup,” said Canada Soccer, when asked about a potential deadline for earning a spot on the country’s inaugural roster. “[We] anticipate it would be ahead of the Men’s National Team’s Olympic Qualifiers, though.”

That is important because as it stands, both Toronto FC’s professional FIFA player PhilB94_ and Vancouver Whitecaps FC pro exraa find themselves well outside of the top-two Playstation players after SibWolf and his Gillette Infinity Esports team took a big leap in the standings by making it to the Round of 16 at the FIFA eWorld Cup this past weekend.

With the biggest eMLS tournament of the season, the eMLS Cup, set to take place on Mar. 21—the same day that Canada opens their Men’s Soccer Olympic Qualifying Tournament—it is unlikely that PhilB94_ or exraa will be able to secure enough points to climb back into the top-four before Canada selects its roster.

However, crazier things have happened, and if either of PhilB94_ or exraa can make a deep run at the Country Cup on Sunday—with the winner earning 200 points—then they may still have a shot at representing Team Canada.