Movistar Riders upset Players to go 2-0 in Germany

The Spaniards are showing renewed form at ESL Pro League Season 15 after a slow start to 2022.

Movistar Riders won a close 2-1 series over Players in the second ESL Pro League Season 15 Group C match day after an opening victory against GODSENT on their first day of play.

Galder "⁠bladE⁠" Barcena’s men now sit atop the group ahead of Liquid and GODSENT’s match, which could see the North Americans tie the Spanish squad’s 2-0 record if they come out on top in their bout against the Brazilians.

Alejandro "⁠alex⁠" Masanet and company came into the match as clear underdogs, as the Spaniards have not made their mark in 2022 following a promising last quarter of 2021, failing to go through the IEM Katowice Play-In and the RMR Europe open qualifiers.

Furthermore, Riders' opening ESL Pro League victory against GODSENT came with the caveat that the Brazilians were struggling to find form and have just made a roster change, but despite their billing the Spanish team has now made a statement with a victory over the No. 4 squad in the world.

Movistar Riders and Players had an even start on Inferno despite David "⁠dav1g⁠" Granado Bermudo, the hero against GODSENT, was slow to get into the game as he and his squad fumbled on the attack with several team kills while going down 4-8, although the Spaniards were able to recover to bring it within one at the half.

A solid defense, which started with a full house by Raúl "⁠DeathZz⁠" Jordán Nieto and dav1g on the A site in the pistol round ended up in Riders taking a close 16-14 victory on their map pick as both sides shouted at each other across the studio in the other team’s language, with alex's ‘harosh’ coming back in the form of a ‘vamos’ from Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov.

Players recovered on Mirage with a very strong CT side, stopping the Riders attacks time and time again to an 11-4 scoreline before switching sides. Movistar Riders tried to plant the seeds of a comeback by winning the three first rounds of the second half, but to no avail as Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov and company did not fail to control their pick to close it out with a strong 16-7 by the end of it.

Players superiority came to the fore on Ancient early on, where they charged forth on the terrorist side to take a 6-0 lead, with a 1vs3 by Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov included, but Movistar Riders showed great heart, regaining both their confidence and economy to turn it around, 9-6.

Having won out the half, Movistar Riders transferred momentum to the attack, where despite losing the pistol round they were able to unstabilize Players’s economy in the second round and slowly creep towards the coveted 16th round win, which they did soundly in the 25th round to claim a 16-9 victory.