With no physical matches, Mexican footballers play online

FILE – View of the field and the empty stands before the Mexican Clausura tournament football match between America against Cruz Azul at Azteca Stadium, in Mexico City on March 15, 2020. The match is played without public as a preventive measure in the face of the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by PEDRO PARDO / AFP)

Mexico’s main football league will launch an eSports tournament on Friday with professional players as the global pandemic sees stadiums shut and physical play suspended.

The competition will be a “replica” of 2020’s closing tournament, organized over 17 days with nine maches daily and culminating in a finale, the Liga MX said Tuesday.

“There will be general rankings with, in the end, eight teams qualified for the playoffs,” said the Liga MX, who were forced to halt the season on the pitch at the end of the competition’s 10th day to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Each of the 18 clubs will choose three players from their professional teams to participate in the virtual tournament, with each meeting seeing a one-on-one match.

The games will be played in two periods of six minutes, with a half-time of less than three minutes, and will be broadcast across the main Mexican TV channels.

Two championship days are scheduled for the week.

In the eventuality that physical play is able to resume, the two competitions will continue simultaneously.

In Europe — where quarantine and isolation measures are more severe — eFootball competitions are already being held, like the “Bundesliga Home Challenge” in Germany.