The North American content creator, who played a key part in the showmatch before yesterday’s VCT LOCK//IN Final, spoke up about the Brazilian fans’ lack of enthusiasm when homegrown talent is not involved.
Fnatic defeated LOUD in an epic five-map affair in the grand final, silencing the home crowd with a massive comeback on Icebox to secure the trophy. The Brazilians in the live audience, dejected after their team’s defeat, immediately left the arena, to the extent that the winners’ interview took place in an almost empty stadium after one of the most memorable series in the game’s short history, raising controversy in the eyes of many watching from home.
Tarik, who co-streamed the grand finals live from São Paulo didn’t shirk from voicing his opinion on the matter in the post-game discussion, saying that “I think the Brazilian crowd is amazing when Brazilian them is playing, and I think that Brazilians also do realize this and there are Brazilians that are taking note of this that this is becoming a common theme.”
He continued to elaborate on the matter, saying that “they show up for the Brazilian teams and players, but they don’t show the same love to other teams, and my message to them is for the Brazilians to start spreading word amongst other Brazilians that ‘hey, tournaments are not gonna be coming back if this is the case,’ like, this is pretty sad, I’m not gonna lie, and I hate to touch on it, but it’s very real, and it’s very true – but the fact that the winning team is giving their interviews and doing it live in front of basically nobody in the audience after they just put on a hell of a performance, it just doesn’t do it justice. So my message to Brazilians is to please advocate fellow Brazilians to start showing love for these other teams or otherwise, just like I said, Riot is not going to want to come back.”
That said, Anna Donlon, Riot’s Executive Producer on Valorant has hinted in a post-game remark that they are looking to return to Brazil. Tarik’s clip also made the rounds on the CS:GO subreddit, where the discussion reminded many of the controversies of the IEM Rio Major, an event where the Brazilian live audience also failed to show up for the matches where local players weren’t involved, most notably the semifinals between Outsiders and MOUZ.
