coolio : "I'm proud of the team because second place is something we didn't expect before coming here"

coolio : "I'm proud of the team because second place is something we didn't expect before coming here"

FUT coach András " coolio " Fercsák reflected on the team's 1-3 defeat to Spirit in the grand final of the Esports World Cup 2026, praising his players for a result they did not expect before arriving at the tournament.

FUT struck first in the series and also came close to taking Ancient, but Spirit ultimately proved stronger in the decisive moments. Speaking to HLTV after the final, coolio discussed the team's lack of experience in high-pressure rounds, the psychological impact of losing Ancient, and the challenge of recovering in time for BLAST Open Porto.

FUT lacked experience in crucial rounds

According to coolio , FUT produced a respectable performance in the final, but Spirit 's greater experience became decisive in the most difficult moments.

"I am proud of the team because second place is something we did not expect before coming here. Today we put up a good fight but lost because, in my opinion, they had more experience in tough and clutch situations. They were calmer and managed to win those rounds."

For the young FUT roster, the Esports World Cup 2026 marked their first final on such a large stage, giving Spirit an advantage when the series reached its most demanding situations.

Positivity after roster changes

Despite falling short of the championship, coolio urged his players to focus on what they had accomplished rather than dwell on the defeat.

FUT changed one player only two months before the tournament, yet still managed to reach the grand final.

"I am really proud of them. What we accomplished here is incredible. We changed a player only two months ago, and now we finished in second place. We need to take confidence from this tournament and not just focus on the fact that it's second place. There's no reason to be upset, as we have a new tournament in three days, and we need to go there with confidence."

The loss on Ancient affected FUT mentally

Ancient proved to be one of the most important moments of the final. FUT held a 12:9 lead but were unable to close the map, eventually losing in overtime.

coolio stressed that the result was not simply down to bad luck, pointing instead to communication and execution in key situations.

"In Counter-Strike, it's always like this. You think you should have won that round and say, 'Oh, unlucky.' But no, it all depends on communication and how you play out situations. On Anubis, we also lost about three post-plant situations. If we had won them, we would have had a much better attack and maybe could have closed the map on defense."

"We didn't lose Nuke because we're bad at this map"

After the draining loss on Ancient, FUT struggled to respond on Nuke and fell 5:13.

According to coolio , the team understood Spirit 's approach and had prepared correctly, but simply could not win enough individual duels.

"We didn't lose Nuke because we're that bad on this map. I think we just couldn't win any duels. We had good reads of the map, we prepared correctly for the moments where they came, but we just couldn't kill them."

"We ran out of energy"

coolio also acknowledged that the Ancient loss took a visible psychological toll on the team.

"I think we ran out of energy. It was clear from the players that the loss on Ancient hit them hard. We couldn't mentally reset properly, and they gained momentum and just started killing us."

Spirit capitalized on that momentum, while FUT were unable to recover mentally before the final map.

The next challenge — BLAST Open Porto

FUT will have little time to recover from their Esports World Cup run. On August 27, they are scheduled to face Legacy in the opening round of BLAST Open Porto 2026.

Despite finishing second in Paris, coolio does not want to place excessive expectations on the team heading into the next event.

"I always try to be realistic. I don't want to set high expectations, even though we finished second here. We could lose the first match and immediately find ourselves in the lower bracket. Legacy also finished third in this tournament, so they will be tired too. I just hope the guys can reset in these few days because it's not easy."

Although FUT fell short in the grand final, their Esports World Cup 2026 campaign represented a major step forward for the roster. The team reached the final, challenged Spirit across three maps, and showed that it could compete against the world's best teams.

Their immediate task now is to recover from the demanding tournament and carry the confidence and experience gained in Paris into BLAST Open Porto.