00 Nation, one of the three Brazilian CS:GO teams that qualified for the IEM Rio Major, suffered a painful 16-3 defeat to Bad News Eagles in the opening round of the Challengers Stage today.
The Riocentro venue is packed with Brazilian fans who have been continuously supporting the home teams, but that wasn’t enough to stop Bad News Eagles in their showdown with 00 Nation on Vertigo. The team hailing from Kosovo swiftly took care of Marcelo “coldzera” David’s side, who played his first Major match since 2019 and turned 28 years old today, from the very beginning of the match thanks to a nearly impenetrable CT side in the first half (12-3).
When Bad News Eagles and 00 Nation switched sides, the Kosovar team delivered a flawless show to win 16-3 on Vertigo. It’s hard to highlight just one Bad News Eagles player because all of them had their moments during the series, but Rigon Gashi finished the map with the most frags (21) while Flatron “juanflatroo” Halimi had the highest ADR (112.9).
This result of Bad News Eagles vs. 00 Nation maintains Europe’s flawless track record against South American teams at the IEM Rio Major. GamerLegion beat the South American mix of 9z in the first series of the day, also in a dominant way.
Bad News Eagles are now in the 1-0 pool of the IEM Rio Major Challengers Stage’s Swiss system and can move to advancement territory if they win one more later today. 00 Nation, on the other hand, need to improve a lot to move to the 1-1 pool later today and avoid being on the brink of elimination while playing in front of thousands of fans.
