Manchester – Toronto FC’s PhilB94 began his pursuit of the FUT Champions Cup on Friday at the Victoria Warehouse in the Old Trafford distract of Manchester, England.
The FUT Champions Cup is a qualifying tournament for the FIFA 18 Global Series Playoffs, which is the only way into the prestigious FIFA eWorld Cup. To get out of the “Swiss Style” round of the tournament Phil Balke must pick up four wins before picking up four defeats
Phil started the day with a matchup against Englishman Danny Taylor. The local product walked away with an 8-2 aggregate victory.
“I started pretty rough. The first match, in particular, was difficult,” said Balke,”I knew I needed to make some adjustments after that.
Balke then bounced back with a big victory over Danish player FifaUstun 7-5 on aggregate. The win moved Phil into a decent position with a 1-1 record.
However, Phil ran into some difficulty in his third match and dropped a tough one to German player Marcel492.
Phil was then seeded against Curl, a top player from Japan, for his third round game. Curl jumped out to a kick 3-0 lead on Phil, but TFC’s player pulled it back to within one in the second leg.
Phil was then denied on a PK before Curl added another to extend his aggregate lead to 2. The Japanese player saw the game out to pick up the win. The loss put Phil into a win or go home scenario.
For his fifth and final match of the day Phil was matched up against Kolderiu from Spain. Phil staved off elimination knocking off Kolderiu to move to 2-3 on the tournament. He scored a beautiful chipped goal on route to the victory.
I have officially joined the chip life @AirJapespic.twitter.com/BSVecyIBdi
— Philip Balke (@PhilB94) April 13, 2018
“I'm happy with how my game came together in the last game, “ explained Balke, “I’m playing perfect now and this is how I want it to be heading into the knockout round.”
Balke will need to win both of his final Swiss Round matches to advance to the knockout stage tomorrow.
“Playing in these do or die games will be valuable for me going forward [in the tournament], “ said Phil, “It’s these games that prepare you well for the knockout rounds.”
Tune in to see if Phil can advance to the Knockout Rounds tomorrow morning on EA SPORTS FIFA’s Twitch channel. The stream gets underway at 7:00 AM ET.
