Recently, the matches in Group A of the ESL Pro League Season 15 tournament concluded, with Ninjas in Pyjamas, Fnatic, and Entropiq advancing to the playoffs. Tomorrow, games in Group B kick off, which is undoubtedly the ‘group of death’. The matches in the first group showed that any team can make it to the playoffs. Although FURIA and Sprout aren’t the favorites of the group, they could certainly pull off some surprises against their opponents. We’ve prepared a prediction for their head-to-head matchup.
FURIA
The Brazilian team had a solid end to the previous season, making it to the playoffs of the major. At the start of this year, the squad finished second at the ESL Challenger, earning $20,000. At IEM Katowice, KSCERATO and his teammates performed poorly, only beating Astralis. In January, the team added sniper saffee. Before that, junior was the main sniper but moved to Complexity.
Sprout
The German team has revamped most of its roster recently. Their star player faven left, followed by denis. On a temporary basis, kressy and rey played for Sprout, and at the beginning of this year, the organization signed Staehr and Marix. The refreshed lineup achieved a key goal by qualifying for the RMR tournament in Bucharest. It didn’t come easy—they succeeded on their third attempt. They earned their spot in the ESL Pro League through their performance in the ESL Pro League Conference.
Statistics and Prediction
The Brazilians have a win rate of 50% over the last three months. Sprout’s win percentage is higher at 65%, but they’ve faced less challenging opponents. Since the teams are from different regions and the Germans rarely compete at the top tier, they haven’t faced each other this year or last.
Currently, slaxz- leads for the Germans, with spiidi and Marix performing well, while raalhz and Staehr can have strong games but often fall short of their teammates. Sprout excels on Dust2, but the Brazilians don’t play it. They have a chance to win on Overpass or Vertigo. For FURIA, KSCERATO is playing at his best, and their main sniper is in good form. FURIA hasn’t played much this year, and their map pool looks weak, but it’s worth noting who they’ve been up against—they lost to G2, Na’Vi, and Virtus.pro, all top-10 teams in the world.
Bookmakers offer odds of 1.45 for a FURIA win, which seems fair. The team might struggle against the best lineups globally, but they handle mid-tier opponents confidently. The new player has already adapted, and the rest have been together for a while. For the Germans, most of the roster is freshly updated, and the newcomers haven’t impressed yet. The Brazilians should come out on top without much trouble.
