England’s Spencer “Gorilla” Ealing won the 2017 FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) in London this evening.
He beat Germany’s Kai “Deto” Wollin in the grand final at the Central Hall Westminster, with a score of 7-3 on aggregate.
That’s despite a nightmare start for England in the FIFA tournament, with four of England’s five players dropping out on day one of the group stages.
The Englishman also received a cheque for $200,000 and an invitation to attend FIFA’s annual awards ceremony The Best FIFA Football Awards in London on October 23rd.
The result means that fellow English FIFA player Christopher “Thee Bullock” Bullock’s prediction proved true. Bullock said to Esports News UK ahead of the event that an Englishman would win the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2017 this week.
Armed with the reputation as the best attacker in the history of FIFA, Spencer dominated the day to win England its first ever taste of gold-medal glory at the FIWC since 2005.
He scored 46 goals over three days, and was statistically the best attacker with 2.93 goals scored per game, and the best all-rounder with a goal difference of +17.
In an exciting final match, Kai accumulated a 3-1 lead, but Spencer forced his way back, to ensure a 3-3 draw at the end of the PlayStation Leg.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable to have won this tournament. I think that to have won something of this magnitude is something that will change my life forever.”
Spencer “Gorilla” Ealing
Gorilla was coached by Sean “Dragon” Allen – who finished runner-up in last year’s FIWC final. It’s a remarkable turnaround story, considering the pair were at loggerheads late last year and were involved in a falling out.
Gorilla asked Dragon to come up on stage to lift the cup, and said he couldn’t have won it without him.
“I’ve known Dragon for ages now,” Gorilla said in this interview. “It benefited me having him as a coach tactically. I think it actually won me that game in the final because if I stayed with my same formation – which I was going to – I probably wouldn’t have won.
“So I thought, what would Dragon do? I switched to 4-4-2 and it won me the game.”
Couldn’t of done it without @DragonFIFA_ seriously he helped so much this tournament. Best hype man in the game! Tactical beast as well.
— Spencer (@Gorilla_Unilad) August 18, 2017
Very admirable your attitude ?? pic.twitter.com/kG8gq22HUq
— Martendal #TLZ #FSW (@martendalfifa) August 18, 2017
“Obviously the prize money is huge but for me it’s not about that, it’s about being the FIWC champion and representing all of the people who have supported me to reach this point.”
FIFA’s director of marketing services Jean Francois Pathy has promised to make the Interactive World Cup bigger for next year.
He said: “We are looking forward to working with our partner EA SPORTS and the FIFA community to make our competition even bigger and better.”
This week’s event was the 13th version of the tournament. Over seven million players over the course of an almost-year-long season attempted to qualify for the FIWC – 32 made it to this week’s finals.
Waited 3 years for this moment, words cannot describe this feeling. Finally a World Champion!!! Your support has been unreal since Day 1…. pic.twitter.com/Gk5RgCPyLj
— Spencer (@Gorilla_Unilad) August 18, 2017
The UK can play FIFA pretty damn well – here’s to more victories in the future.
European Champion from ?? with the WORLD Champion from ?? @Gorilla_Unilad That is 2 Major Championships brought back to the UK, WELL DONE ?? pic.twitter.com/iGS3nyYPII
— Tass (@Hashtag_Tass) August 18, 2017
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
