Sandton City recently played host to a FIFA 20 tournament offering an R40,000 cash prize pool.

Over four days, eight heats and two platforms, around 512 players competed for the spots available in the finals on Sunday 24 November. Placing top two on each of the two platforms - PlayStation and Xbox - secure those spots, and saw 16 players on each platform begin the battle at around lunchtime.

Present were a number of Cape Town players who had been flown up by their organisations to compete, along with plenty of the top Gauteng players. There were also a number of new up-and-comers awaiting their trial by fire, and generally the action did not dissappoint, with passersby and fans alike taking in the action at the centre.

The action kicked off with a five-round Swiss format (played over two legs) to whittle the 16 players per platform down to eight. The two-leg format continued into the knockout phase as the remaining eight per platform were brought together for the first time in the tournament.

The higher seeded of the two players had the choice of which console to play on first. Clever first leg selection would mean your preferred console may be the one used in the event of a draw over the two legs. In matches where this occurred, a third match was started to determine the winner. The first half of the third match was essentially a 'classic' extra time, with the second half 'golden goal'. A tie, after all, that meant penalties were the only choice.

This offered players plenty of opportunities to bounce back even after a poor first game. It also saw a fair number of match ups require a third and deciding game. After plenty of unrelenting action, the FIFA 20 tournament series saw two Capetonian players in the finals.

Masoom Fakie from Bravado Gaming and Julio 'The Beast' Bianchi from Goliath Gaming were those two players from the Mother City, and made the final an entertaining one. It was a match up that required a third game to decide the result. And even then, it was a golden goal in the second half of the deciding game that determined who walked away as the champion in the inaugural Sandton City event.

FINAL STANDINGS

The full playoff bracket can be found here.

The Sandton City Gamers Expo was powered by BT Games who sponsored the FIFA 20 prize pool.

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