The first Nations Cup - International eSports Championship has concluded with Kyrgyzstan being the winner and India went second place with a close result in the finals.
Nations Cup featured professional players from 8 National Esports Federations - Viet Nam, India, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan. Each country also brought their national esports federation’s General Secretaries/ Presidents to the event. Although, due to some technical issues, Azerbaijan wasn't able to make it to the event.
Players competed with each other in the video game Pro Soccer Evolution 2020 (PES 2020) on PS4 inside the hall at Global Exhibition on Services (GES 2019). Moinuddin was the player to present India in the event. He managed to survive the first knock-out round and then entered the semi-finals to face Abdul Maseeh from Maldives. The match went on extra time because both teams scored 2 goals. Moinuddin won in the end after scoring 1 goal.
In the other semi-finals match, Samat Temirov from Kyrgyzstan faced Sanjar Usmanov from Uzbekistan. Samat easily won 2-0 and proceeded to the finals.
In the finals, we had a Best of 3 between India and Kyrgyzstan. Team Kyrgyzstan won the first match with a 2-0 score. The second match was a draw with both players scored 2 goals each. The last match was the decisive match and team India needed to lead at least 3 goals to win. Team India managed to score 2 goals, but team Kyrgyzstan took advantage of the extra time and scored 1 goal, making them the winner. Even though Moinuddin was not the one to hold the "Nations Cup," but the audiences in the tournament were very supportive.
This tournament is the first sign of acceptant from the India government to support the esports scene in India in the future.