9. Virtus.Pro over SK.swe – (13-9) - ESWC 2004 – July 6th-11th, 2004

“Russians deny SK yet again at ESWC”

HLTV Demo (de_dust2)

Virtus.Pro Roster

Viktor F.
F_1N
Snoop
LeX
Groove

SK.swe Roster

Potti
HeatoN
fisker
ahl
SpawN

One can see a theme developing here: victories over SK.swe. Swedish fans may take this as an attack on their team but actually it’s a credit. Their dominant play and impressive style makes their defeat an important event. ESWC 2004 was no exception.

Everyone thought SK.swe was destined to make up for their zEx loss the previous year. With NoA going out in group play, considered one of the favorites, SK.swe really had no other competition. No one expected spiXel or Titans to defeat SK.swe head to head but it wasn’t one of the finalists but an unknown Russian team who would deliver the final blow.

Virtus.Pro converted the opening pistol round on the offensive side of Dust2 and scored the next two saves. Christer "fisker" Eriksson showed himself and would be SK’s best player during the match. He came up huge in the first gun round pulling SK back to even 3-3. Then the money situation caught up to SK. The expensive M4’s really took a toll as SK was never able to secure back to back rounds.

Holding onto the money advantage, Virtus.Pro kept the pressure on ending with a 8-4 first half score while winning five of the last six rounds. The match was nearly over when Virtus.Pro came out in the second half and won the defensive pistol rounds. Winning both pistol rounds is a killer in max round 12 play, and it turned out that way for SK.

Still, this match wasn’t over as SK started a comeback. An early buy on the third round of the second half gave SK an impressive win. They steamrolled Virtus.Pro in bomb site A, opening up a hole they could exploit. After converting a second gun round and the following save rounds, SK had manage to string together five straight rounds, pushing the overall score to 11-10 in favor of Virtus. The momentum was all in SK’s favor and the Russian Cinderella story looked to be over.

Virtus.Pro staked their next gun round on a bomb site B rush but SK instead went to bomb site A and forced Virtus.Pro to retake. Let me rephrase, they forced Johan Kochugov to retake the bomb site and that he did. Fragging four members of SK and putting Virtus.Pro on his back he decided the match. The change of momentum was then followed up with an important second round.

Again Virtus.Pro guessed bomb site B and this time it paid off as SK came rushing in and was cut to pieces. With the momentum and only one round left to win, Virtus.Pro closed out an amazing match and put away SK’s hopes at a comeback.

Virtus.Pro’s win eliminated SK from ESWC 2004 and dashed their hopes at winning a tournament; something that still eludes them. Although they didn’t win ESWC 2004, Virtus.Pro would go on to win ACON5 the following year and is a consistent top 10 European team since that victory. Aleksey “LeX” Kolesnikov may not have been the hero in that huge final round, but his stock skyrocketed and has become one of the top players in the World since the match.