England confident in build-up to FIFAe Rocket League World Cup 2024

3 December 2024

Back in summer, we wrote a piece about the upcoming FIFAe World Cup featuring Rocket League, also known as the FIFAe Rocket League World Cup 2024, for our international website. The tournament, which is held for the 19th time this year, will take place from December 5th to December 8th 2024 at the SEF Arena in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Team England has given us a glimpse into the build-up to the big opening. It will be the first time the FIFAe World Cup is being organised since FIFA’s split from EA Sports and the first time the event features another esports title as well.

16 qualified teams

The roster for the 2024 FIFAe World Cup ft. Rocket League consists of sixteen national teams that have been divided into two groups. Seven of those teams were invited by the organisation, five of them went through open qualifiers, three of them through mixed qualifiers and one country (Germany) progressed through the Invitational Playoffs.

INVITED COUNTRIES	OPEN QUALIFIERS	MIXED QUALIFIERS
Australia	Argentina	Brazil
England	Belgium	South Africa
France	Chile	Spain
Morocco	Netherlands
Saudi Arabia	Portugal
Turkey
United States

+ Germany through Invitational Playoffs

“We’re extremely pleased to be selected as one of the 16 nations selected to compete”, says Jeff Simpkins, England Rocket League team manager, “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 […] 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.”

Eyes on the title

Despite the heavy competition, Team England are confident that they can bring home the title later this month. The English squad boasts plenty of exceptional talent, including Finlay “rise” Ferguson, Joe “Yoyo” Young and Archie “Archie” Pickthall, as well as back-up player Ben “Toxiic” Salmon. With coach Noah “n0ah” Hinder at the helm, they will be looking to clinch first place and the accompanying $ 50.000 in prize money.
“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”, says Simpkins, “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 […] 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.”