He did it the hard way, but Niklas "NRaseck7" Raseck found a way to win his first FUT title after defeating Diego 'Qlash Crazy' Campagnani in the FIFA 20 Champions Cup Stage II grand final on Sunday in Bucharest.
The Xbox player, who is currently a free agent, won both legs of the decider 1-0 to claim a long-awaited piece of silverware and put a number of more established names on notice.
NRaseck7 beat more favoured opponents Donovan "Fnatic Tekkz" Hunt and Mossad “MSdossary” Aldossary on his way to the grand final in Romania and held his nerve to then see off Qlash Crazy in clinical fashion.
Qlash Crazy can still be pleased with his performance and can claim to be the breakout player of the season so far, having reached the semi-final stage in the first competition of the season, on top of this most recent performance.
Remarkably, NRaseck7 only just scraped into the knockout rounds after losing two of his five group games.
Msdossary had won all seven of his matches prior to facing NRaseck in the Xbox quarter-finals but fell 4-3 on aggregate.
Full of confidence, NRaseck then dispatched Fnatic Tekkz 6-2 in the semis before claiming the Xbox title with a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Vini 'Vini' Leiva Tonetto.
Fnatic Tekkz falls short after season-opening win
EA Sports
Having reigned supreme in the season-opening event for a third straight year, all eyes were on Fnatic Tekkz to see if he could back it up.
The early signs were mixed as he lost two of his group matches but still managed to book a spot in the Xbox knockout rounds.
Back in the do-or-die environment, Tekkz lifted his game and didn't concede a goal across four legs as he saw off Jamie 'JamieFUTWIZ' O'Doherty and Kylem 'Lyricz' Edwards respectively.
A semi-final clash against eventual champion NRaseck7 saw things come undone in dramatic fashion however.
After a tight 2-1 loss in the first leg, Tekkz was torn apart by his German opponent in the second match as he was defeated 4-1.
MoAuba improves but still off the pace
EA Sports
The reigning eWorld Cup winner failed to progress past the group stages at the first FUT Champions Cup and Mohammed "MoAuba" Harkous was determined to bounce back in Bucharest.
After winning his first three PlayStation 4 group encounters, the German lost his final two but still locked in his place in the next stage.
In the round of 16, MoAuba put in a solid performance to sneak past Gabry 3-2 but a quarter-final clash against Brazilian Paulo Neto would prove too tough a task.
After a 4-0 defeat in the first leg, the goals kept flowing in the second as MoAuba was knocked out with a 7-1 aggregate loss.
Brazil dominates
Brazil are already looking like favourites for the eNations Cup, with 11 players at the FIFA 20 FUT Champions Cup Stage II and six making it to the knockout rounds, including three from Ronaldinho's R10 team.
The best performing Brazilians at the FIFA 20 FUT Champions Cup Stage II were the aforementioned Paulo Neto from SQPR, who reached the PlayStation final, and Vini from Netshoes Esports who got just as far on the Xbox side of the competition.
More South American news to come out of this weekend's action was the announcement that CONMEBOL eLiberdatores will be part of the EA Sports FIFA 20 Global Series season.