India qualified for the FIFA Nations Cup for the second straight season on Friday. The tournament is considered the pinnacle event of FIFA esports among the member associations of the governing body of world football.
India first participated in the FIFA Nations Series in 2021 and has done extremely well to qualify twice in three years for the tournament, widely known as the ‘World Cup of FIFA eSports.” India were knocked out at the group stage of the FIFA World Cup 2022, held in Denmark in July 2022. The eTigers will be looking to improve their record this time among the 24 nations that will qualify for the FIFA Nations Cup 2023.
Apart from India, three other nations—Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore—have qualified from the Asia and Oceania region for the final event. They will be joined by 11 teams from Europe, three from the Middle East and Africa, three from South America, and two from North and Central America, along with the host nation, which has not been announced yet.
India started their FIFA World Cup 2023 journey in December 2022 in the Play-Ins stage and played the Online Qualifiers Main Stage in April before qualifying for the Playoffs.
In the Playoffs stage, represented by the #eTigers Charanjot Singh, Saransh Jain, Siddh Chandarana, and Saksham Rattan, they lost the first round of the double elimination bracket by an aggregate score of 2-3 to Indonesia in a close encounter but fought back with back-to-back victories against New Zealand (0-9 on aggregate) and Japan (1-2 on aggregate) thanks to an injury-time goal to seal their spot in the FIFA Nations Cup 2023.
Charanjot Singh, the captain of the Indian team, said: “It is an amazing feeling to make the FIFA World Cup for the second time in a row. I am proud of the way everyone performed. Hard work has finally paid off for us. We practised hard to achieve this, and now it’s time to get even better and work harder for the offline event”.