FC Cincinnati’s professional gamer, Gordon “Fiddle” Thornsberry, competed in Bucharest, Romania this past weekend at the PGL eSport FIFA 19 Cup. This event was hosted over two days and featured 32 of the best FIFA players in the world. The competition also featured a prize pool of $30,000 and was a FIFA 19 licensed qualifying event (LQE) in which points were up for grabs for players to qualify for the FIFA eWorld Cup.
Day one of the competition featured a Swiss style format in which each player played five, two leg matches with each game being played against an opponent with a similar record. To qualify for the knockout stages on Sunday, a player must record thee or more wins. As all FIFA 19 competitive tournaments are played on the FIFA 19 Ultimate Team game mode, Fiddle was able to pick and choose which players he wanted on his squad. Fiddle’s squad featured some of the best players, past and present, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, Ruud Gullit, and Paolo Maldini, with Lionel Messi coming off the bench.
As the Swiss rounds began, Fiddle matched up against Vitality Rafsou, a FIFA 18 global series playoff finalist from France, in the first game, where he lost 7-4 on aggregate. The second game featured a matchup with Marcus Gomes, a top 10 ranked FIFA player in the world, from Melbourne City. Down 4-1 after the first leg, Fiddle battled back and scored three goals, but it wasn’t enough as he lost 5-4 on aggregate.
Being down 0-2 in the Swiss rounds Fiddle needed to win three straight games to qualify for the knockout rounds and he was able to do just that. Fiddle defeated the Canadian, Sibirskiy Wolf 4-1, the Brazilian, LucasTabata 5-4, and then the pro player from 1. FC Nurnberg in Germany, Hensoo, 5-3.
With a 3-2 record in Swiss rounds, Fiddle qualified for the knockout rounds as the eighth seed where he matched up against the current top-ranked FIFA player in the world and top overall seed in the tournament, F2Tekkz out of the UK. At just 17 years of age, F2Tekkz came into the matchup after just winning the November FUT Champions Cup the previous week, where he took home $60,000. In leg one, Fiddle held his own, locking things down defensively, but just couldn’t find the back of the net as the game finished 0-0. In leg two, Fiddle was finally able to break through scoring a goal, but it just wasn’t enough as F2Tekkz went on to win, 3-1. Fiddle said after the game via twitter, “I did a lot of watching of streams last night to prepare for this matchup and it worked out pretty well defensively as the first leg was a 0-0 draw but lost the return leg 3-1.” F2Tekkz would go on to win the competition.
Although Fiddle was unable to win the tournament, a top-eight finish in his console’s bracket was very impressive. With plenty of events remaining this season and the eMLS league series beginning in January there’s plenty of time for Fiddle to continue to earn points to qualify for the FIFA eWorld Cup which will take place Summer 2019.
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