With the FC Pro Open Cups, EA SPORTS has introduced an additional route to the FC 25 World Cup. While two German players made an extremely successful debut, the unofficial world champion was met with criticism.
“Never before have I been so broken after a defeat,” Jonas Wirth said on Sunday in his Instagram story for the first of the newly introduced FC Pro Open Cups. Shortly before, he had lost to Umut Gültekin in the semi-finals of the competition and was really annoyed about it: “I just played Santa Claus and gave away presents,”
‘Jonny’ presents Gültekin with the final
In fact, he could have done better against the man from Leipzig – Wirth had beaten him in the last two VBL Grand Finals. If he had been less unfocused in the extremely close duel in the semi-finals of the EU East region, the match might have gone his way. The final score was 13:12.
The defeat was particularly bitter given that ‘Jonny’ had previously managed to eliminate Gültekin’s colleague Anders Vejrgang 9-8. The Dane had already defeated last season’s “RBLZ fright” in the final of the VBL Club Championship and at the last FC Pro World Championship.
‘Obrun’ grabs the overall victory
But Gültekin still had the final ahead of her, in which she was competing not only for the $8,500 but also for important points in the overall standings of the cups. Three of the tournaments will take place in November, December and January. The players with the most points from the ten global regions will travel to the play-ins of the FC 25 World Cup.
‘RBLZ_Umut’ missed out on a big win, however. The former Hamburg resident lost 4:10 against the Italian Francesco Tagliafierro after the first two games. Gültekin had to make do with 5,000 US dollars in prize money and 300 points instead of the maximum 400. These went to ‘Obrun’, as Tagliafierro calls himself online.
Bachoore triumphs – ‘jafonso’ enraged
Meanwhile, in the west of Europe, a professional who knows his way around the World Cup is at the top of the ranking: Manuel Bachoore, FIFA 23 world champion, was simply unstoppable in the knockout round on Sunday.
On his way to the overall victory, he not only eliminated the two English players ‘GoalPocher’ and ‘Stingray’, but also won against the Frenchman Brice Masson in the final. In the semi-finals, Masson had beaten Bachoore’s Team Gullit teammate Emre Yilmaz, who has been consistently among the European elite since his breakthrough a few years ago.
However, the focus in the EU West region was on another world champion. Joao Vasconcelos had secured the title at the unofficial Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia. He was highly critical of EA SPORTS on both days of the competition: “It’s impossible to compete online in this game,” he ranted during the Swiss Round on Saturday on X, providing the reasoning in the form of an attached gameplay clip.
In the clip, you can see how ‘jafonso’ wants to defend Caroline Graham Hansen, who is controlled by the opponent, with the physically superior and highly rated defenders Virgil van Dijk and Micky van den Ven.
Despite numerous tackles from the best angles, the much weaker Hansen inexplicably and inexplicably remains on the ball – and even manages to score. A late goal as crucial to the game, after which the Portuguese lost the game.
“I win the first two games convincingly and out of nowhere, the game no longer allows me to compete,” the EWC champion commented on the ‘last-minute defeat’, concluding the post with a sarcastic ‘Congratulations EA’.
After Vasconcelos finally had to throw in the towel on Sunday in the first round of the knockout stage, the next post from the Luna Galaxy pro followed on the short message service. “Due to the connection, I felt completely helpless,” he said, explaining his 5-6 first-leg defeat against Walid Hadaoui after leading 4-0, and concluded: ‘Unfortunately, the conditions for the online competition are terrible.’
In fact, EA SPORTS has repeatedly faced technical allegations. Whether it’s an online or offline event, the developer and publisher doesn’t seem to be able to consistently create the same conditions for all players. In recent years alone, the start of the FC Pro Open, the qualifiers for the FIFAe Nations Cup 2023 and even the final rounds of the 2023 World Championships have run into problems. It’s a chronicle of failure that seems to be continuing in 2024.
