I used to play in a team which was pretty good on the Belgian scene (around top 3). The scene had, however, basically always been dominated by a Flemish team called defusekids (they later changed tags), which, on a good day, could give good European teams a run for their money. There were a few of their players who at the time had basically (almost) never lost in Belgium (Apollo, Bax and luce, especially).

So, one weekend, in 2008 (or possibly early 2009), there's a LAN hosted by a cybercafe in Brussels (on their computers, obviously), and quite a lot of pretty good players decide to attend, notably a mix of players from our team and a couple of our friends, and four defusekids members + one stand-in they often played with.

We end up first of our group, win our first match in the bracket and then have to face the defusekids mix-team in the semi-finals. This was BO3 single elimination. We start on de_nuke, on which we end up getting destroyed - we lose it 3-16. During the break before the next map, we could hear the defusekids players basically laughing and enjoying themselves. The second map was dust2. I motivate my mates like crazy at the beginning of the game, and since we had lost the previous map we get to choose sides. We decide to start CT (the most difficult side on that map) in order to catch them off-guard by adapting strats from my team (in a way that made the incorporation of our two stand-ins not too difficult). It works. We win the map 16-9, I top frag on both sides and we are incredibly psyched up.

The third map is inferno. We start as T (again the most difficult side, since it was their turn to choose and they picked CT) but end up winning the half 10-5, which is a very good score as T on that map. We then move to CT and I DESTROY the other team during the pistol round (I kill four of them). 11-5 and they have to eco. 12-5. We win their first buy round. 13-5. They win a round and we win the next one, then again the same thing. 15-7 for us. We need ONE round. One round, and the players who have been dominating Belgian CS on both sides of the linguistic border for years get eliminated by my mates and me.

And then, things start falling apart. They start attacking the B bombsite (I was covering A) almost every single round, and my mates get picked off every single time. We couldn't consistently stack that bombsite either because they started each round with pressure on both bombsites. Indeed, the one round we decide to put three people on B instead of two (it's a smaller bombsite than A), they end up attacking A after early pressure on B. I kill two of their guys but it's not enough. We go back to distributing our players normally around the map, and they keep winning rounds by mostly ending up attacking B. We have to eco several times. From 15-7 in our favor, they come back to 15-14. They have all the momentum. If they equalize, we'll go into overtime and chances are they will stay on their roll and kick us out of the tournament.

For the final round, we decide to have one guy rotate to B early and to play a bit more aggressive in A in order to prevent them from scouting the fact that we are only two. It works, since they end up attacking B, but they still kill all three of our players in B, with three casualties themselves (that is a good trade for them since terrorists are favored with lower even numbers). Their two last players plant the bomb. Me and my mate from A are under huge pressure - the bomb is ticking (35 seconds until explosion after it's planted), and we have to retake a bombsite which is relatively easy to defend on even numbers. We get close, and I tell my mate we're going to split up and use both entrances to the site from CT spawn, but not before I throw a flashbang to blind the opponents. I throw it and we both run in. My mate gets the first kill on my left, while I look on the right side of the site for my guy. I see him just as I enter the angle he was covering. I'm faster than him. He's dead. There's a fucking HUGE roar from the crowd behind us and from our mates. I run to the bomb and start defusing it - I know I have enough time since I have a defuse kit. I fist pump in the air while finishing the defuse which seals our victory.

Quite an amazing feeling considering we had lost two or three times to them on LAN before and they were the undisputed champions in Belgium (although they did have a stand-in here). We ended up winning the final as well, but that semi-final match was just incredible. I ended up top fragging on inferno as well, which only added to the great feeling.