Coronavirus: With no physical matches, Mexican footballers play online

Liga MX, Mexico's main football league, will launch an eSports tournament with professional players with the season suspended due to the global pandemic.

Representative image: Three players from each of the 18 Liga MX clubs will participate in the eSports tournament

Mexico’s main football league will launch an eSports tournament on Friday with professional players as the global pandemic sees stadiums shut and physical play suspended.

The competition will be a “replica” of 2020’s closing tournament, organized over 17 days with nine matches daily and culminating in a finale, the Liga MX said Tuesday.

“There will be general rankings with, in the end, eight teams qualified for the play-offs,” said the Liga MX, which was forced to halt the season on the pitch at the end of the competition’s 10th day to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

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Each of the 18 clubs will choose three players from their professional teams to participate in the virtual tournament, with each meeting seeing a one-on-one match.

The games will be played in two periods of six minutes, with a half-time of less than three minutes, and will be broadcast across the main Mexican TV channels.

Two championship days are scheduled for the week.

In the eventuality that physical play is able to resume, the two competitions will continue simultaneously.

In Europe -- where quarantine and isolation measures are more severe -- eFootball competitions are already being held, like the “Bundesliga Home Challenge” in Germany.