Two-time French champion ‘Vitality RocKy’ won the FIFA 17 Ultimate Team Championship on 20 May
He's enjoying the season of his life, after having long struggled to obtain a breakthrough victory
The Frenchman is among the favourites to win the 2017 FIWC Grand Final
In the space of two years, ‘Vitality RocKy’ has established himself as the top French player on the FIFA gaming circuit. Having secured the French Championship in 2016, he repeated the feat this year, and subsequently confirmed his status as one of the world’s best players by triumphing at the FIFA 2017 Ultimate Team Championship in Berlin on 20 May.
Ultimate Team World Championship Champion! $160,000 won.
“I’ve experienced defeats that left me a little bit demoralised, but they helped me to learn and bounce back a better player,” he told FIFA.com after his victory in Germany. “It gave me a surge of pride. Winning my first title last year was the real trigger for me.”
His team-mate, ‘Vitality Brian’, who came to support him in Berlin, was in agreement with this analysis. “We always knew he was one of the best players in France, even in the world, but he really struggled to get his first tournament win. He would get knocked out in quarter-finals and semi-finals. But since he won his first title, something really clicked, and now he’s got a real winning mentality. That’s what you need in these tournaments, anyway. Even if he reacts when he lets in goals, he never loses his mental strength.”
He continued: “He’s a very expressive player, regardless of whether he’s scoring goals or if there’s something happening in the match that he doesn’t like. The top players in the French gaming community play a game based on possession, unlike English players like ‘Gorilla’, who have more of a counter-attacking style and get the ball forward more quickly.
“‘RocKy’ is able to control the game extremely well and if there’s one thing he does better than anyone, it’s picking out passes in tight spaces. Sometimes it seems like he’s the only one who can see them! I think that’s what he’s best at.”
Four years after the now-retired Frenchman Bruce Grannec captured the global crown, ‘RocKy’ has shown that he has all the right qualities to pick up where his illustrious compatriot left off, and he will soon attempt to prove that theory at the 2017 FIWC Grand Final in London.
*Great game by @Vitality_RocKy, who wins the tournament – what a brilliant season!*