The group stage of the ESL European Nations Championship is finally over. The competition now moves on to the final stage, the playoffs.

The first team in each group has directly qualified for the semifinals, they are France from Group A and Italy from Group B, both teams having four victories and no losses.

France won their first match against Belgium not without troubles, going 1-1 after winning the first map, however in de_inferno the French took the victory with an impressive 16-2.

Then they beat Russia, Denmark and Germany with the score of 2-0 (the match with Denmark has been deleted after the retirement of the Danes), with only United Kingdom forcing them to drop a map again (it was de_nuke, the same map they lost against Belgium).

Italy is the surprise of this ENC edition and of course there have been lot of doubts floating around them, especially after the victory over Slovakia 2-0 in the second playday.

With the wins against Poland and Slovakia behind them, they got confident and went on to beat Austria and Czech Republic 2-0 again, making them the only team qualified for the playoffs with no map lost.

France will meet the winner of the United Kingdom against Slovakia, respectively the third placed team in Group A and second placed in Group B.

UK got two wins (against Russia 2-1 and Belgium 2-0) and two losses (versus Germany 0-2 and of course against France 1-2), while Slovakia won against Austria, Poland and Czech Republic, losing only to Italy.

In the other semifinal there will be a Central European derby since Italy will face Germany or Austria, 2nd team in Group A and 3rd in Group B respectively.

Germany of course lost only to France, winning against UK, Belgium, Russia and also Denmark before their withdrawal from the competition.

Austria got only three points, with only a victory over Poland and three defeats against Italy, Czech Republic and Slovakia, but they got the best score difference (4:6) compared to Czech Republic (2:7) and Poland (2:6).

As you may already know the grand final will be played on LAN, in Cologne, Germany, from 19 to 23 of August. The winners will take home €2,000, with €1,000 going to the runners up.

France -
	France 2
-
		France  -
United Kingdom 2
	United Kingdom 1
Slovakia 0
			-
Germany 2
	Germany 2
Austria 0
		Germany -
-
	Italy 0
Italy -
		United Kingdom -
			-
		Italy -