Bad News Bears have no chance of advancing to the ESL Pro League season 14 playoffs following today’s 2-0 loss to Team Spirit (16-6 on Inferno and 16-8 on Dust II) in the competition’s Group A.
The loss to the Russian CS:GO team crushed any hopes the North Americans had of qualifying for the next round since they only have one match left and sit at zero wins. Vitality, Astralis, and ENCE all have two victories, while Heroic lead the group with three wins. With this result, however, Team Spirit are still alive in the competition with only one win. But they’ll need to depend on a combination of results to secure a spot in the playoffs.
Bad News Bears weren’t considered among the favorites to progress in the competition since they’ve been practicing in North America, a region that’s struggled since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, which caused most of the tournaments and tier-one practice to take place in Europe. But this is a huge blow to Alan “Shakezullah” Hardeman and crew, who are still looking for an organization to represent.
The pressure may have gotten to the North Americans, who are yet to win a single map in the competition or achieve double-digit round wins on the maps they picked. All of Bad News Bears players are also averaging negative ratings and are the five worst players of the tournament so far, statistically speaking.
The ESL Pro League season 14 Group A action will keep going today with Heroic vs. ENCE at 9:45am CT and Astralis vs. Vitality at 1pm CT.
