Saudi Arabia’s Ahmad “AbuMakkah” Mujahid rolled through the upper bracket of the resurrection stage on Saturday, landing a spot in the playoffs of the EA Sports FC event at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Mujahid earned a 4-3 victory over Brazilian Nathan “Nathansr22” Ribeiro in the upper-bracket quarterfinals, then beat Taichi “Web Nasri” Aoki of Japan 6-4 in the semifinals and the Netherlands’ Manuel “ManuBachoore” Bachoore 7-6 in the final.
Bachoore had reached the final thanks to a 3-2 win over Matias “Bonanno” Bonanno of Argentina a round earlier. He also topped countryman Emre “EmreYilmaz” Yilmaz 5-4 in the upper-bracket quarterfinals.
With the loss to Mujahid, Bachoore fell into the lower bracket, where he put together a 10-1 drubbing of Bonanno in the final to secure a playoff spot.
Bonanno edged Aoki 5-4 to reach the lower-bracket final.
Sixteen players participated in the group stage, which featured two groups of eight players competing in round-robin action. The top three players from each group went right to the playoffs, the fourth- through sixth-place players duked it out in the resurrection stage and the bottom two players were eliminated from the tournament.
Of the six total players that had to settle for the resurrection stage, only two made it out.
Now, eight players will square off in the single-elimination playoff bracket, with the winner taking home $300,000 and 1,000 Esports World Cup club points.
All seven playoff matches will be held on Sunday:
–jafonso vs. ManuBachoore (quarterfinals)
–PHzin vs. Mark11 (quarterfinals)
–Young vs. Vejrgang (quarterfinals)
–nicolas99fc vs. AbuMakkah (quarterfinals)
–Winner of jafonso/ManuBachoore vs. winner of PHzin/Mark11 (semifinals)
–Winner of Young/Vejrgang vs. winner of nicolas99fc/AbuMakkah (semifinals)
–Semifinal winner vs. semifinal winner (grand final)
EA Sports FC event prize pool (money, EWC club points):
1. $300,000, 1,000 points
2. $150,000, 600 points
3-4. $90,000, 275 points
5-8. $50,000, 60 points
9. $30,000, no points — Bonanno
10. $30,000, no points — Web Nasri
11-12. $30,000, no points — Nathansr99, Emre Yilmaz
13-14. $15,000, no points — Levi de Weerd, Msdossary
15-16. $10,000, no points — Jonny, GoalPoacher
–Field Level Media
