AeroSoc Pro Evo Tournament
Posted Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 22:32pm / No comments
The evening of Monday 25th February saw the advent of the first Pro Evolution Soccer tournament hosted by AeroSoc. A dozen-or-so wiley competitors made their way to the Roderick Hall lecture theatres for the opportunity to win just under £20 doing what they'd probably be doing anyway! Two PlayStation2s had been rigged to the rooms' audio/visual systems to provide students with a break from slides about compressibility and bypass cycles.
The tournament format consisted of a number of league groups; players in each group getting to play at least two games each. The top players from these groups would then progress to a knock-out stage. A couple of groups proved to be not massively competitive, Ed Hughes and Paul Gilmartin winning all of their games to progress comfortably. Another group, however was not so easy.
After the group winner - Andrew Di Cesare (who also won all his games) - second place was split between two players on the same number of points, goal difference, goals scored, and all other deciding factors. So it came to pass that Abeed Visram and Richard Ware (one of two guests from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering) would play again in order to make it through to the knock-out stage. Richard just managed to sneak through.
So after a number of games, the draw for the semi-finals took place. Ed (playing as Valencia) would face Andrew (Man. Utd.) for the chance to face the winner of Paul (Arsenal) and Richard (Barcelona). The game between Ed and Andrew was particularly interesting with both players having qualified well from their groups: Ed in particular netting eleven goals in two games. After a tense 15 minutes Andrew emerged as victor, winning the game 2-1 and sending Ed on his way home. The other game was tighter, with scores being level at full-time. With extra-time not being played, Richard held his nerve to win the penalty shoot-out and make his way to a final with Andrew.
The two finalists had previously met in their group stage with Andrew getting the better of Richard to win a tight game 2-0. However with £20 at stake this would be an entirely different game. Unfortunately for Richard it was, with Andrew this time winning 5-1. Both players agreed the score didn't completely reflect the flow of the game but were happy to take their respective prizes home.
