Ettorito97 wins PES League's second European season

With a 10-2 win in his first game, and a final won 5-1 against the experienced German El Matador, Italian PES player Ettorito97 has dominated the second season of the PES League: Road to Cardiff.

Gathered in Anfield, Liverpool's famous stadium, the 16 European finalists offered a sometimes dazzling and always interesting show. The tournament saw four players qualify for the world finals that will take place on June 3 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff alongside the UEFA Champions League final.

If you recall, the first four European players booked their place in Cardiff during the regional final for Season One in Barcelona last February.

Given its close partnership with several major teams on the continent, Konami only offered players a handful of teams to pick from. Thus, they nearly all picked FC Barcelona, giving up on Atletico Madrid, Dortmund and Liverpool, to name a few of the available teams. The only person to have chosen a different team, namely the Portuguese player dNation, opted for Arsenal (as he did in Barcelona), but ended the competition empty-handed, with three games lost (kind of fitting when you consider Arsenal's recent form).

Seeing mostly Barça vs Barça matches wasn't as fun as it could have been, and so we're wondering why Konami didn't follow similar rules to those used for FIFA, where players can only use the same team for a limited number of matches.

Apart from that one mark against, the level of the tournament was high, even higher than in Barcelona according to the organisers, and we witnessed the coronation of an exceptional player: former world champion (in 2011, and runner-up in 2010 and 2014) Ettorito97. The Italian will be joined by German El Matador, as well as French player TioMiit_PW, the only person able to resist him during the tournament, when he beat him in the second game of the Group stage (5-4). Spaniard Alex Algacil finished fourth.

The four players won $20,000, $10,000, $6,000 and $4,000 respectively, with Konami's prize pool for this event $40,000. A significant chunk of cash, but nowhere near as impressive as the $200,000 prize promised for the PES League 2017 world champion. We're looking forward to seeing the world's best players compete on June 3rd.

It should be noted that the two British players present at the event, DexK and Bad Boy G, didn't make it past the group stage. To see all of the results, head to the official PES League website.