Portland Timbers-repping Nick Mars, aka marsbars_11, locked up his place in the FIFA Ultimate Team Championship Series Regional Final in Vancouver by winning the MLS March to Soccer Challenge Thursday night at the adidas Brand Center in midtown Manhattan.
Mars faced off against eight of the most talented EA SPORTS FIFA 17 players in North America with the whole event live-streamed on EA’s Twitch channel. The evening served up crazy skills, epic thrills, and a whole lotta goals. From the very first kick, intensity was high and the pressure was on.
Each gamer repped a different MLS team. So to kick things off, the Portland Timbers’ Nick Mars took on New England’s Marc Shauffer, winning 3-2 in a match that came right down to the 90th minute. In the opening of the first half, Mars’ high-pressing style and quick counter-attacking play suffocated Shauffer and led to the Timbers’ first goal, courtesy of, in the game, none other than Ruud Gullit. It wasn’t until after halftime that Shauffer finally found his footing, courtesy of a tidy Luis Suarez goal on end of some brilliant build-up play.
However, it wouldn’t be long until Mars and his souped-up Timbers jumped out to a 3-1 lead, forcing Shauffer to push forward late in the second half. He almost pulled off the comeback, after Cristiano Ronaldo found Luis Suarez for the finish once again. But in the end, it was too little, too late for the Revs, and Nick Mars was bound for the semi-finals. After the win, Mars broke down his game plan and gave me some insight into his tactics.
“I think I defended him well. I read what he was going to do — he wanted to use a lot of skill moves and I saw that,” Mars said. “So I backed off just a little bit just to give him that space, and whenever he was going to shoot or make that final pass, I could step in on it.
“When I scored that second goal to take the lead, I knew from there that, if I just play conservatively, he’s going to push and I’m going to be able to score another one.”
After undisputed FUT Youtube king Castro1021and his Chicago Fire dispatched MrESTRINO and LAFC, Mars faced off with Castro for a spot in the finals.
Stalemate conditions prevailed for most of the first half, with Castro’s best chance saved by Tim Howard in the early goings. Things opened up big time in the 40th minute when, in a sequence that would foreshadow the rest of the match, Portland took control of a Howard goal kick at midfield and moved the ball swiftly into the attacking third. That led to to an unstoppable bar-down laser by Cristiano Ronaldo from just outside the 18-yard box. Mars capitalized on a Castro turnover and struck again just before half-time, forcing his way into the driver’s seat at the break.
It proved to be out of reach for Castro, whose Chicago Fire were snuffed out time and time again by Mars’ relentless press and battered by his insane front three of Suarez, Ronaldo, and Messi. Not even the great Kasper Schmeichel could stop Castro from falling by a score of 4-2.
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“He’s a great player,” Castro said of Mars after the match. “His possession is very important to him winning these games, I think. I couldn’t keep the ball away from him. He was very good with that high pressure.”
Castro also said he’s happy that MLS is getting involved with events like this one. “I think it’s good for the real-life football as well,” he said. “There are so many people that play FIFA all over the world, but I want it a little more in North America, so hopefully it gets bigger in the future.”
Mars would prevail in the final by a scoreline of 3-1 and punch his ticket to Vancouver after hammering San Jose Earthquakes gamer Shadi Daher with his viciously effective press-and-counter style.
“It’s incredible. To go to your first event and win it, it’s a dream come true. [Shadi] had me most of that game, I just made the most of my chances,” Mars said. “I knew I would be able to keep possession on him, I just needed to make sure I finished my chances when they came to me.”
