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The Esports World Cup how do you train for it · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This city's home to its big university, it's stunning winding
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  Speaker 1: canals and its ancient architecture, but it's also home to
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  Speaker 1: something just a little bit more modern. Yes, tucked away
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  Speaker 1: in the Netherlands' fourth biggest city is one of the
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  Speaker 1: world's most successful esports teams, Team Liquid, one of the
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  Speaker 1: top names in professional competitive gaming. We're here to catch
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  Speaker 1: up with some of its players, like Yanya, getting ready
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  Speaker 1: for this summer's massive multi game tournament, the Esports World Cup.
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  Speaker 2: Got like a lot of excitements, a lot of adrenaline,
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  Speaker 2: Like the best feeling ever.
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  Speaker 1: He plays a three a side action shooter called Apex.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody wants to week here because this is literally the
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  Speaker 2: best quality of everything, and.
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  Speaker 1: As part of Team Liquid, can be in front of
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  Speaker 1: crowds of thousands.
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  Speaker 3: I think we have a really really good chance to
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  Speaker 3: win the same Yeah, yeah, I don't know. We have
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  Speaker 3: been practicing a lot.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, everything can happen right.
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  Speaker 1: Competitive gaming is big around the world. It draws passionate
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  Speaker 1: crowds of fans into arenas and thousands more watched online.
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  Speaker 1: This team is one of the top contenders at this
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  Speaker 1: year's Esports World Cup, and you can see why. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: look at all these trophies that they've won over the years. Chicago, Malta.
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  Speaker 1: This one here is actually from last year's Esports World Cup.
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  Speaker 1: It's for the Dota two competition, back for its second year,
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  Speaker 1: the Esports World Cup, both the biggest price pot ever
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  Speaker 1: in professional gaming over seven weeks of competition, seventy million
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  Speaker 1: dollars will be one. That's cash that pays for places
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  Speaker 1: like this. This is one of the best equipped esports
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  Speaker 1: facilities in the world, with everything you need to be
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  Speaker 1: a professional esports player, meals that provide in the kitchen here.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of the players actually live upstairs. There's rooms
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  Speaker 1: for training in there's actually one just round the corner
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  Speaker 1: where you can go live on Twitch. But there's so
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  Speaker 1: much equipment in here, and all of that costs a
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  Speaker 1: lot of money. And one of the people responsible for
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  Speaker 1: making those numbers add up is Victor Housen, who founded
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  Speaker 1: Team Liquid all the way back in two thousands.
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  Speaker 3: I started Team Liquid just as a hobby. I was
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  Speaker 3: a StarCraft player myself and we formed what was back
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  Speaker 3: then called a klen, a few friends basically playing together,
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  Speaker 3: and this was all meant to be a hobby, just
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  Speaker 3: for a passion, and it stayed that way for the
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  Speaker 3: first ten or so years of Team Liquid, until eventually
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  Speaker 3: esports started getting bigger and bigger and I realized that
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  Speaker 3: I could actually do this as a full time job.
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  Speaker 1: This office must have cost quite a lot of money.
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  Speaker 1: It's a huge business. Can you just kind of give
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  Speaker 1: us a sense of how big.
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  Speaker 3: Esports has evolved to have an audience of about five
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  Speaker 3: hundred million people nowadays, and the commercial side is a
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  Speaker 3: full fledged sport with investors and partners, sponsors, merchandise sales,
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  Speaker 3: media rights. Yeah, Team Liquid is writing that wave, and
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  Speaker 3: that also makes it really important that we do invest
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  Speaker 3: into these physical locations where our staff can work out of,
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  Speaker 3: our players can practice out of, and we can basically
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  Speaker 3: be the best version of ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: Not everyone in esports has cheered on this World's Cup, though,
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  Speaker 1: because of it being based in and largely funded by
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  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Some individual players have said they don't want
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  Speaker 1: to play that because of the kingdom's human rights record.
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  Speaker 1: The boss of the Esports World Cup, though, has told
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  Speaker 1: the BBC that everyone is welcome there.
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  Speaker 3: It has been a sensitive and a tricky topic to navigate.
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  Speaker 3: Fourteen Liquid we've been very outspoken that we believe in
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  Speaker 3: esports for all, and that means in particular, for almost
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  Speaker 3: the last fifteen years, we've really done our best to
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  Speaker 3: empower the LGBTQ community within esports as well. And of
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  Speaker 3: course there's a contradiction there and between the historic human
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  Speaker 3: rights record of Saudi Arabia, and so that's been difficult
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  Speaker 3: to navigate. At the same time, we believe that if
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  Speaker 3: we want to be around five years from now, ten
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  Speaker 3: years from now, we need to be playing in the
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  Speaker 3: Esports World Cup. We need to be playing in the
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  Speaker 3: biggest events.
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  Speaker 1: As part of their plans to win big this year's
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  Speaker 1: e Sports World Cup, Team Liquid have been signing up
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  Speaker 1: new players too, like Lafey who plays football simulator EAFC,
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  Speaker 1: which you might know, but it's all name FIFA.
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  Speaker 2: In our team. We are all friends. So obviously you
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  Speaker 2: want yourself to perform best, but if you don't have
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  Speaker 2: the chance because you're good knocked out, you want some
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  Speaker 2: other guys with the team to perform at their highest level.
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  Speaker 2: I think training and preparation is everything. We have performance
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  Speaker 2: coaches and mental coaches which are helping us a lot
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  Speaker 2: in our head, which I think it's one of the
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  Speaker 2: most mental sports. It is. Obviously sitting in your chair
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  Speaker 2: behind your console isn't that tough physically, But mentally it's
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  Speaker 2: really training, so I think you need to be ready
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  Speaker 2: for that.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of famous football players have their own celebration.
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  Speaker 2: Of my own celebration, it is this one.
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  Speaker 1: He's hoping for some gwins, so too will the esports
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  Speaker 1: giants like Team Liquid. Okay, and that's how it's done.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to stay for the day job.