If you’re a football fan, this won’t come as a surprise.

Whether we like it or not, it appears that Saudi influence in the sports world is not only here to stay but also growing stronger.

While we got a glimpse of the scale at Gamers8, Saudi Arabia has now cemented itself in the Esports scene, and their pockets are deeper than ever. Across 19 competitive titles, the Esports World Cup is set to feature a $60M+ total prize pool, with $1M reserved solely for Counter-Strike.

But in order to acquire the bag, you have to beat some of the best, which is no easy task.

Well, it seems like this time it wasn’t that hard.

In the EU Closed Qualifier, Sashi, Eternal Fire, Cloud9 and BetBoom battled it out for a spot in Riyadh. Led by coach HUNDEN, the Sashi squad managed to surprise everyone and upset the two heavy favorites, beating both Cloud9 and EF in BO3 series. No spectating bug this time, right?

Despite playing with alpha as a stand-in, expectations were higher for Cloud9. m0NESY can’t come soon enough.

Anyways, what beats one upset? Exactly. Two upsets.

Team Liquid got crushed by M80 in the final series of the NA Closed Qualifier, featuring a 1.59 rating performance from malbsMd. Despite seeming to have finally found their form in Chengdu, the Liquid boys stumbled in this qualifier. Let’s see if they can bounce back one more time.

FlyQuest, MIBR, and TheMongolz are also headed to Riyadh, managing to secure their spots through the Oceania, South America, and Asia Closed Qualifiers, respectively.