Top Blokes faced off against Team Queso in the final of the Rocket League Championship Series Season X Winter EU Regional yesterday, and fans of both teams knew they were in for a dramatic match. Top Blokes was hoping to close the gap to the teams at the top of the World Championship qualification leaderboard, while Team Queso would need a bracket reset before it could think about victory.
Coming from the loser’s bracket and needing to win two sets to emerge victorious, Team Queso was surprisingly the underdogs coming into the final. The final came down to overtime in the seventh match, during which Top Blokes scored to take a 1-0 victory.
However, it was Top Blokes’ comeback in the fourth set that really grabbed viewers’ attention and made anyone who has ever attempted to climb the Rocket League ranks break out into a jealous fervour. Top Blokes was up two matches to one, but Team Queso scored with nine seconds to go, taking the fourth match score to 4-2, and all but sealing its victory.
The casters echoed these sentiments, as the ball hit the net from an acute angle one says “Team Queso take the game.” The chat was full of Fs and was writing off Top Blokes, but the team had other ideas.
A mere five seconds later, Jack ‘FlamE’ Pearton lobbed the absent Team Queso defence to claw one back for Top Blokes, bringing the match to within one goal again. With three seconds to go, there still wasn’t much hope, but Top Blokes was ready to defy all odds.
The timer ran down, but another aggressive kick-off saw Top Blokes hoist the ball into the air for a long-ranged shot which cannoned off the bar. Andy ‘Kassio’ Landais was ready to hit the rebound, which emphatically secured the draw for his team, sending the match into overtime.
While Team Queso grabbed the golden goal of that match, Top Blokes coming back from a two-goal deficit with nine seconds to go was the standout moment of the entire tournament, and could have been a vital confidence boost that spurred the team to victory.
Top Blokes now sits in third place on the EU rankings with an impressive haul of 1501 points in Season X. Team Queso languishes in seventh place, one place outside of a Worlds qualification spot, but is only 30 points behind Endpoint, which is in sixth place with 930 points.