YEKINDAR says he was ready to give up after every map of FURIA’s Thunderpick final, and that he, yuurih and FalleN are still not over the illness. On , FURIA and Team Liquid meet at two wins and two losses each at PGL Masters Bucharest 2026: the winner takes a quarter-final place, the loser goes home.
Neither team has had a smooth run in Romania. FURIA beat DENDELE, lost to NAVI and Spirit, and then needed a 2-0 over TYLOO on Tuesday evening to stay alive. Team Liquid opened with an upset of MOUZ, were swept by FUT, beat Legacy and lost to Aurora on a deciding Cache a few hours before FURIA played.
For FURIA, there is more on the line than a quarter-final. Bucharest is the first of the four events FURIA have marked as FalleN‘s last before he retires at the end of 2026. A defeat on Wednesday would end that first stop before the playoffs.
A final played with a fever
YEKINDAR could barely speak when FURIA lifted the Thunderpick World Championship trophy in Malta last week. Talking to Dust2 Brasil in Bucharest on Tuesday, the Latvian described what the final had been like from the inside. The quotes are translated from Portuguese.
I was ready to give up after every map. It was very hard mentally and physically, because I wasn’t focusing that much on the game plan. I was focusing, but not at the level I normally do. During that game, during the rounds, I had a fight with my inner self, along the lines of “I feel so bad, I can’t focus”.
A 30-minute break after the third map saved him, he said. He lay down, calmed down and cooled off, and it helped a lot. “In the end, the team never gave up, and I’m not the kind of guy who gives up first,” he said.
The fever has gone, but the illness has not left the team. YEKINDAR said he no longer has the fever or the brain fog, but he still has the congestion and the cough, and that “yuurih and FalleN have the same thing”. The plan is medicine and patience. Between the travel, the illness and the hard matches, he admitted that it is “a bit difficult” mentally and physically at the moment, “but there’s nothing you can do about it. You just have to keep going.”
It has not shown in every result. On Tuesday, FURIA lost only seven rounds against TYLOO, and all five players finished with more kills than deaths.
FURIA2-0
DENDELEStatsAncient 13-8, Inferno 13-11
maxxkor
NAVI2-0FURIAStatsAncient 13-10, Dust2 13-5
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Team Spirit2-1FURIANuke 13-7, Ancient 8-13, Mirage 13-11FURIA2-0
TYLOOStatsInferno 13-5, Mirage 13-2
MoseyuhTwo old teammates and a new system
The opponent is personal for YEKINDAR, a former Liquid player. FURIA and Liquid have not met since September 2025, according to Dust2 Brasil.
He played down the reunion. Only NAF and EliGE remain from his time there, he said, and Liquid now play “a completely different system”. He admitted that, historically, he plays well against his former teams, but said he would not treat the match as a grudge: “It will just be a normal game.”
He has watched Liquid’s matches in Bucharest, though, and liked what he saw. They are “definitely going in the right direction”, he said, playing “very aggressive and very direct”, a style that comes naturally to the players they have. “I’m going to be very careful tomorrow, because they have a specific way of playing and approaching the game.”
JT on a team that can beat anyone and lose to anyone
Liquid’s in-game leader JT has his own word for the season so far. In an interview recorded before the event, which PGL showed on its broadcast ahead of Liquid’s match with Legacy on Monday, the South African said the team was ranked around 45th when he joined. A strong start made it easy to get carried away, he said, but “once you get better at the start, you’re probably going to get worse before you get better again”.
I think that’s a very common thing that happens, and I think that’s what we’re going through right now. But in general, I think we’re just going through a lot of inconsistencies. I think we can beat good teams, but we can also lose against teams that are at much lower level.
His goal for Bucharest was the playoffs, as a way back to tier one events next year. Four series in, Liquid have matched his description almost to the letter. Before the event they lost 0-2 to magic and 0-2 to fnatic. In Romania they beat the ESL Pro League finalists MOUZ, then won only 14 rounds across two maps against FUT. JT himself has swung with the team: 10 kills on Ancient and 26 on Inferno against MOUZ, 16-30 against FUT.
The defeat to Aurora was one of their better performances. Liquid led 10-8 on Cache before Jimpphat’s clutches turned the map, and malbsMd finished the series with the highest ADR on the server. Their place at PGL Major Singapore is no longer in doubt, which leaves Wednesday as a match about this tournament alone.
Team Liquid2-1
MOUZStatsAncient 13-16, Inferno 16-12, Mirage 13-11
JT
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FUT Esports2-0Team LiquidStatsCache 13-5, Dust2 13-9
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xfl0udTeam Liquid2-0
LegacyAncient 13-10, Inferno 13-8
Aurora2-1Team LiquidStatsAnubis 13-11, Inferno 11-13, Cache 13-10
FalleN’s last weeks as a player
FalleN turned 35 this year and has said that 2026 is his last season. On the eve of the event, FURIA named the four tournaments he has left:
- PGL Masters Bucharest 2026, until 31 October
- IEM Beijing 2026, 2 to 8 November
- BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2 in Hong Kong, 11 to 15 November
- PGL Major Singapore 2026, where FURIA start in Stage 3
His form in Bucharest has gone up and down with the team’s. He was 15-33 against NAVI and 28-14 against TYLOO, the most kills on the server that night. The pressure has also told off the server. After the Spirit match, he told Dust2 Brasil that he had slept only three hours the night before, and that his head no longer switches off after matches.
Three matches, three quarter-final places
Wednesday’s whole programme follows the same rule: six teams on two wins and two losses, three series, and the three winners join BetBoom, FUT, Aurora, MOUZ and Vitality in the quarter-finals on 29 and 30 October. The three losers share ninth to eleventh place.
| Time | Match |
|---|---|
 The MongolZ vs  Nemiga | |
| Team Liquid vs FURIA | |
| Team Spirit vs NAVI |
Matches in Bucharest have often started earlier than planned when the previous series ends quickly. Results and the quarter-final pairings will be on our PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 page.
