The goal scored by eplayer Carmine 'Naples17x' Liuzzi ten months ago with Lorenzo Insigne's avatar in the final against Serbia won the European Championship for the eNazionale TIMVISION PES and gave the FIGC their first trophy in the world of eSports. On Monday 29 March, Italy will begin their next journey as they look to achieve a historic double success: they’ll play the first set of eEURO 2021 qualifying fixtures against the teams in their group. A far from easy task awaits the Azzurri, who, despite being seeded in the draw, have been included in the ‘group of death’ along with England, Portugal, Iceland, Northern Ireland and Moldova. 55 national teams will compete in the tournament, ready to do battle with their controllers on PES 2021 (PlayStation 4): the ten group winners will qualify directly for the final tournament, while the ten runners-up will be divided into two groups of five teams, with the top three in each group going through to the finals to be held on 9 and 10 July in London.

Italy, who finished ahead of Montenegro and Ukraine to win their European qualifying group last year following eight victories, a draw and a defeat, will have to face two big names in Portugal and England: “It wasn’t the luckiest of draws,” said Nicola ‘nicaldan’ Lillo, who will be aiming to become a European Champion again alongside his teammates Alfonso ‘AlonsoGrayFox’ Mereu, Carmine ‘Naples17x’ Liuzzi and Raffaele ‘Rafinter934’ Pagliuca. The latter is a new member of the quartet after his successful performance in the finals of the selection process. “We’re ready,” Lillo continued. “We’ve been training twice a day, and Raffaele has also integrated well. Winning will be difficult and we’ll need to do really well in order to repeat last year’s exploits because our opponents will be more competitive than ever. The favourites to win the Euros? France, Spain, Serbia and, of course, Italy.”

All of Italy’s matches will be broadcast live on TIMVISION, on the enazionale.figc.it website and on the eNazionale’s Twitch channel. 

UEFA eEURO 2021 qualifying groups

Group A: Spain, Finland, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Estonia
Group B: Germany, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia
Group C: Croatia, Turkey, Sweden, San Marino, Cyprus
Group D: Austria, Montenegro, Slovenia, Kosovo, Andorra
Group E: Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Russia, Armenia, Malta
Group F: Israel, Lithuania, Belgium, Faroe Islands, Republic of Ireland, Switzerland
Group G: Romania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar
Group H: ITALY, Portugal, Moldova, England, Iceland, Northern Ireland
Group I: France, Denmark, Albania, Norway, Azerbaijan, Wales
Group J: Netherlands, Greece, Belarus, Scotland, Czech Republic, Georgia

The Azzurri’s fixtures (29 March, all times CEST)

17:00 ITALY vs. Portugal
18:00 ITALY vs. Moldova
19:00 ITALY vs. Iceland
20:00 ITALY vs. England
21:00 ITALY vs. Northern Ireland