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The FIFAe World Cup Finals 2024 featuring Rocket League and eFootball get underway this week, and the England Rocket League team are feeling confident. We caught up with team manager and Resolve COO Jeff Simpkins for his thoughts on being involved and the team’s chances.
Who’s in the FIFAe England Rocket League team?
England’s Rocket League team features some top talent: Rise, Joyo and Archie, plus sub player Toxiic.
Rise and Joyo were part of the Moist Esports team who won the Rocket League London Major back in 2022, while Archie and Toxiic also have years of experience in competitive Rocket League.
They will be coached by noah, who led Moist’s team to victory at the London Major and previously declined to compete at Saudi’s GWC Rocket League event two years ago. Noah has posted a statement here detailing why he’s attending this time – as it’s purely based around representing his country and helping England.
The team has been selected by Resolve COO Jeff Simpkins.
Here’s who they will be going up against in the FIFAe Rocket League World Cup 2024:
In eFootball, for console England have Mhaywxrd, Lyricz and Xyonism, with the latter also representing the nation in the mobile tournament.
What is the FIFAe World Cup?
FIFAe, the esports brand of football body FIFA, is running nation-based tournaments in eFootball and Rocket League this week.
It’s the first time the event includes multiple esports titles, following FIFA’s breakaway from EA Sports (which now has its own FC games and tournaments). Previously, the FIFAe tournaments featured EA’s FIFA football games.
It was announced after G2 Stride won the 2024 RLCS London Major earlier this year.
The 2024 event will take place at Saudi Arabia’s SEF Arena, at BLVD Riyadh City, with the FIFAe World Cup featuring Rocket League from 5 to 8 December, followed by two FIFAe World Cups featuring eFootball (on console and mobile) from 9 to 12 December.
There are 16 nations competing in Rocket League and up to 18 countries going head-to-head in eFootball.
Nations have been divided into two groups and each of the national teams will face the others in their group twice in a best-of-two format, giving place to 14 matchups for each nation within their respective group. Teams will earn three points for a win, and one for a draw.
The top four teams from each table will advance to the knockout phase, featuring best-of-seven matches.
The groups for Rocket League are as follows:
The Rocket League prize pool is $250,000 while the eFootball mobile pool is $100,000 and the eFootball console one is $100,000.
Fans can catch the action live on the FIFAe Twitch channel from 5 to 12 December, with every match available on FIFA.gg.
The FIFAe Finals 2024 are the second FIFAe event of this year after the inaugural FIFAe Next Gen event in Liverpool, which included the first FIFAe World Cup featuring Football Manager, won by Indonesia.
There’s more info on the FIFAe website here
Interview with England Rocket League team manager Jeff Simpkins: ‘There is no greater pride than being able to represent your nation’
What do you think about this new tournament and being a part of it?
We’re extremely pleased to be selected as one of the 16 nations selected to compete. I think the Rocket League community has been crying out for a tournament like this for a while now. There is no greater pride than being able to represent your nation for players so it adds that extra little something to the competition.
The format is also a little different to what we are used to so we’ll see how teams adapt to that and whether it creates some interesting storylines. Most of all though I’m looking forward to watching the lads compete and hopefully bringing home the win for England from the inaugural competition.
Please tell us about the team selection and any comments you’d like to make on the players
Team selection was very difficult. We are blessed to have some fantastic players who can represent England and regularly play at a very high level in the RLCS and other competitions.
We’ve selected the roster from amongst those top players and I believe put a team together that will have some existing synergy from playing together previously and also have playstyles that complement one another.
They are all really big football fans too so being able to represent their nation and the FA in the same way the national football team do, is particularly exciting for them.
“There are some excellent teams competing from other nations but we are just going to focus on ourselves. I want the lads to remember to enjoy it too though as you never know when there will be another opportunity to represent your nation in this way.”
Jeff Simpkins, England Rocket League team
What are your goals/ambitions in the tournament?
I spoke to all the players at length during selection and there is a real belief in the group that we can win the competition and bring the trophy home and I totally agree with them. I’ve just asked that they give 100% to it and I know that they have the raw talent to back up the hard work.
There are some excellent teams competing from other nations but we are just going to focus on ourselves. I want the lads to remember to enjoy it too though as you never know when there will be another opportunity to represent your nation in this way.
Is there anything else you’d like to add, maybe any info on your background Jeff and how you got involved in this tournament?
My normal role is as the COO at Resolve. We’ve been heavily involved in Rocket League for a few years now and I’m personally very passionate about this esport. The community are incredible and that’s been shown multiple times here in the UK at the events we have had and will have again next year too.
When the FA approached me to take on the Rocket League Manager role for England, I was incredibly humbled.
As I said previously, representing your nation is one of those honours that is just a little bit special. I’ve taken the role very seriously and I’m very thankful to have been given the opportunity.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
