UKTerrorist

ENC: Group Stage 2

Posted by Liq at 19:25 7/6/2005.

Games in the second group stage of the ESL European Nations Championship begin this week, with what should be some closely fought games as the nations compete for places at the ENC LAN finals, which will be held in Germany during August.

The only surprises of the first group stage came in the form of notoriously strong nations Sweden and Denmark failing to qualify out of their groups. Sweden had lineup problems throughout the tournament eventually forfeiting all of their games and allowing Romania to squeeze through, while Denmark lost out to Finland and Bulgaria in a very close group which was decided on round difference. The UK also qualified, finishing second in Group A behind France after the royalty-free lineup of duck, ZaG, Marcus, Kardy and ShaQ defeated Spain.

Here is the draw for the second group stages:

Group A

• Bulgaria
• France
• Germany
• Poland
• Romania

Group B

• Austria
• Finland
• Hungary
• Russia
• United Kingdom

The first games are now scheduled to be played tomorrow, including an intriguing match between the UK and Finland. Both have teams in Korea for WEG (4Kings and astralis respectively) and will arguably be weakened by their absence, so it will be interesting to see how the two teams cope:

United Kingdom vs Finland
Date: Wednesday 8th June (6pm GMT)
Coverage: #esl.enc / blank-tv.de HLTV

Germany vs Bulgaria
Date: Wednesday 8th June (6pm GMT)
Coverage: #esl.enc / blank-tv.de HLTV

Austria vs Hungary
Date: Wednesday 8th June (6pm GMT)
Coverage: #esl.enc / blank-tv.de HLTV