Ivan “BorasLegend” Lapanje from Sweden is a worthy Virgin Gaming Challenge Series Champion after beating pre-finalist favourite Rafael “Ralfitita” Riobó from Spain in the Grand Final 3v1 and wins himself $140,000.

VG Challenge Series | Ivan Lapanje is Champion and Wins $140,000

At the start of the tournament 256 of the world’s best FIFA players converged on the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas for an exciting day of FIFA 13 competition.

Round 1

As early as the 1st round the shocks started to roll in.  Last years champion Adam Winster was drawn against his team mate from Team Dignitas Ty Walton.  Ty scored the winner in the 89th minute to knock Adam off his pedestal.

Other qualifiers from round 1 included our good friends Giuseppe Guastella, Tom Stokes,  Stephen Coorey, KSIOlajidebt, Danny Taylor, Alfonso Ramos, Olly Shaw, Dave Bytheway, Michael LaBelle, Julien Dassonville and Bruce Grannec.

Round 2

The shocks continued in Round 2 as Ty Walton was knocked out as was Dave Bytheway by TCM team mate Olly Shaw in extra time and Aman Seddiqi.

Round 3

Round 3 saw the players whittled down to the last 32 for when the Stream went live at the kick off of Round 4.  Unfortunately Team Sweetpatch TV player Giuseppe Guastella exited at this stage.

Round 4

The 1st game streamed in Round 4 was previous ESWC champion Adrien Viaud vs last years runner up Bryan Moeyaert.  What you thought would be a close game was far from it as Adrien ran out 5v0 winner.

Round 5

At the end of Round 4 16 players remained including some of the pre tournament favourites including Bruce Grannec, Rafael “Ralfitita” Riobó, Adrien Viaud, Alfonso Ramos, Danny Taylor and Tom Stokes.  Surprisingly we lost Bruce as he was beaten by Ralfitita.

Quarter Finals

In the quarter finals we had the following key match ups (with winners highlighted):

1. Tom “tdaniels” Stokes v Sofiane “Jack_Bauer92” Rabah
2. Paweł “Sanczezik” Jędrzejski v Ivan “BorasLegend” Lapanje
3. Azzurra v Alfonso “A_Ramos11” Ramos
4. Danny Taylor v Rafael “Ralfitita” Riobó

The streamed match was Tom Stokes (UK) v Sofiane Rabah (FRA) and Tom was expected to win it and went 1v0 up.  But to everyone’s surprise French FIFA player Sofiane turned it around and ran out 2v1 winner to progress to teh semi finals.  Unknown Azzurra knocked out FIWC champion Ramos and Danny Taylor’s challenge finished as he was dominated by Ralfitita.  Ivan quietly progressed in to the semi finals off evrybody’s radar as Ralfitita was now the majority’s favourite.

Semi Finals

In the semi finals we had the following key match ups (with winners highlighted):

1. Sofiane “Jack_Bauer92” Rabah v Ivan “BorasLegend” Lapanje
2. Azzurra v Rafael “Ralfitita” Riobó

The streamed match was Azzurra v Ralfitita which turned out to be a one sided affair as Ralfitita progrssed in to the final in dominant form and deserved of his “favourite” status.  In the other semi final Ivan won his way to the Grand Final.

Grand Final

Ivan went in to the final versus Ralfitita as the underdog and after just 3 FIFA minutes he went 0v1 down and everyone thought the favourite was looking good to wrap up the match very early on.  But then after quarter of an hour Ivan struck back levelling the match up.  It remained at 1v1 upto half time.

In to the 2nd half and Ivan started to dominate and scored further goals in the 54th minute with a great header and wrapped it up in the last few minutes to win 3v1 and overturn the odds and walk away from Las Vegas $140,000 the richer.

You can watch the full game below (fast forward to about 3:14:45).

Ivan was presented with his cheque for $140,000 by Virgin Gaming director Zack Zeldin and when interviewed Ivan responded with “I only got 5 hours sleep and felt so tired…” and also made everyone laugh when he said “I paid $50 for this stupid game and it win me $140,000!”

Congratulations to Ivan as he walked away a worthy winner and massive respect to Virgin Gaming and all involved for another excellent FIFA 13 Challenge Series.

Tournament Coverage

Check out all our coverage which we provided live during the event here…

Virgin Gaming FIFA 13 Challenge Series Grand Final

So after all the qualification events and mass hysteria, the day has arrived when we will find out who will be crowned Virgin Gaming Challenge Series FIFA 13 Champion. From 17:00 UK time, 256 of the world’s top FIFA players will be whittled down to the final 2 to see who will be crowned champion.

Storified by Sweetpatch TV· Sat, Feb 09 2013 15:39:59