Coupe d'Esquarium VII

Autumn 2016 EFA Coupe d’Esquarium
Chaska i Eskvaria; Coppa del Esquariano; Eskvarscupen
	File:CdEVIIlogo.png Coupe d’Esquarium VII official logo
Tournament details
Host country	Luziyca
Dates	December 12th, 2016-December 24th, 2016
Teams	32 (from 4 confederations)
Venue(s)	8 (in 7 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Ainin (1st title)
Runners-up	Template:Country data Ocelot Isles Ocelot Isles
Third place	Luziyca
Fourth place	Template:Country data Lyonsland Lyonsland
Tournament statistics
Matches played	64
Goals scored	195 (3.05 per match)
	← Spring 2016 Spring 2017 →

The Autumn 2016 Coupe d'Esquarium was the seventh edition of the Coupe d'Esquarium to take place, and the first one to take place in Borea since the Spring 2014 Coupe d'Esquarium. The Autumn 2016 edition took place in eight venues across Luziyca.

This edition was marked by considerable upsets, as the teams that did well in the preceding edition, such as Pisdara and Atlia performed poorly, with the former only advancing into the Round of 16 due to sheer luck. It also saw Ainin's national football team advancing past the semi-finals for the first time, breaking the "Coyote's curse" allegedly placed upon it by East Nautaryan witch doctors, and ultimately defeating the Ocelot Isles six to four.

The motto for this edition of the Coupe d'Esquarium was "hav u wtchd ftball l8tly?," in an abortive attempt by organizers to increase popularity of the Coupe d'Esquarium among the teenage and young adult demographics due to advice from market researchers in order to tie in with the "4G audience."

The motto and its surrounding campaign drew widespread mockery among social media because of their attempt to tie in with the youth, in addition to its use of text-speak, combined with the attempts to create an artificial meme.

Host selection

The Luziycan Football Association submitted a bid to host the seventh edition of the Coupe d'Esquarium immediately after bidding began. Like the previous edition, there were no competitors, despite rumors of other bids, notably from Francilie. Consequently, Luziyca was acclaimed as host for the seventh edition of the Coupe d'Esquarium.

Participating teams

Unlike the preceding edition, which only had 28 participants, there were 32 participants, making it larger than Coupe d'Esquarium VI, albeit smaller than Coupe d’Esquarium IV and Coupe d’Esquarium V, which had forty participants.

Artisia (3)

Conitia (9)

Nordania (9)

Nautasia (2)

Velkia–Borea (9)

Venues

List of venues

National Stadium in Bethlehem

There were eight venues played in seven cities across Luziyca: two of the eight venues were located in Semprihevosk, while the remainder were in Bethlehem, San Tommaso, Feniksgrad, Vesterhag, Talnakh, and Greenwich.

Group	Stadium	Capacity	Location
A	National Stadium	68,393	Bethlehem
B	Coinstar Stadium	62,500	Semprihevosk
C	Xavier's Donuts Stadium	53,202	Semprihevosk
D	Grande Stadio	65,000	San Tommaso
E	Pustinia Karshev's Stadium	61,498	Feniksgrad
F	Vesterhag Stadium	59,482	Vesterhag
G	Smoothie King Ground	35,896	Talnakh
H	Shenitsa State Stadium	62,191	Greenwich

Format

The group stage was conducted as eight single round-robins, with each team playing every other team in their group once and the top two teams in each group advancing to the knockout stage.

Teams were awarded three points for a win and one for a draw and head-to-head results came before overall results when comparing teams tied on points.

Group stage scheduling continued to follow tradition as had been set in the previous edition, with the final group stage games kicking off at the same time to prevent an unfair advantage.

Tie-breaking criteria for group play
The ranking of teams in each group was based on the following criteria: Head-to-head points Head-to-head goal difference Head-to-head goals for Overall goal difference Overall goals for Drawing of lots Number of points

The knockout stage was conducted as a single-elimination tournament. In each round—the round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals and final—the winners of each match advanced to the next round while the losers were eliminated from the competition, though the two losing semifinalists will contest the third place play-off.

If any knockout stage match was drawn after 90 minutes of regulation time, two 15 minute periods of extra time would immediately follow to determine a winner. If the game remained tied, the result was recorded as a draw and a penalty shoot-out held to determine which team was to advance.