
Team Falcons vs Team Liquid is one of the weight matches set to kick off the second stage of ESL Pro League Season 21; how should bettors approach it, though?
The first stage wrapped with a few surprises, most notably TyLoo advancing and Heroic suffering an early elimination. But the margin for error is set to shrink moving forward. Eight of the best teams in Counter-Strike 2 have been added to replace the eliminated squads. Teams will have to bring their A-game in order to make the ESL Pro League Season 21 playoffs.
Team Falcons and Team Liquid were among the eight teams given a stage two invitation to ESL Pro League Season 21. They are seeded eighth and ninth in the stage, respectively.
Team Falcons will start its ESL Pro League Season 21 journey in a good spot. The new roster started to gel at PGL Cluj-Napoca, earning a spot in the finals. It took a 3-1 loss to MOUZ in that match, but the team is positioned to start building momentum here.
Falcons hit the reset button on its CS2 roster, dropping everyone except for Emil “Magisk” Reif. It rebuilt by signing star player Nikola “NiKo” Kovac and the core of Heroic’s roster. Here’s the Team Falcons roster:
There’s still limited data when it comes to figuring out Falcons’ map pool. The team has only been together in its current state since mid-January and has only played in a few events. The early outlook is that it’s strong on Dust 2, but not much can be gleaned beyond that.
Team Liquid impressed in the Shanghai Major in December, but has been shaky against elite teams since then. It has gotten some big wins, like beating MOUZ in IEM Katowice 2025, but most of its success has come against fellow squads from the Americas.
Team Liquid has seemingly handed the team’s reins over to Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, who returned to Liquid in 2023 after a successful stint with FaZe Clan. Whether that’s a good idea is uncertain, but the team has a roster of both veteran and upstart talent:
Over the last six months, Team Liquid has been strongest on Anubis and Ancient, but has a disastrous record on Dust 2. It’s still not entirely clear what sort of impact NertZ will have on the team in this regard, but avoid Liquid on Dust 2.
Team Liquid and Team Falcons faced off once in 2024, with Liquid winning the match 2-1. Bettors shouldn’t read into that, though, since this is effectively a completely different Falcons team.
Team Falcons vs Team Liquid have close odds, with 1.76 vs 2.05 moneylines, respectively. That is arguably quite generous to Team Liquid, as the team hasn’t been able to score many best-of-three wins against EU teams.
Team Falcons is likely to defeat Team Liquid at ESL Pro League Season 21. The squad looks to be better overall and is entering the event with the hotter hand. Liquid has shown it’s capable of beating elite teams, but the 1.76 moneyline on Falcons offers a strong enough value to avoid rolling the dice.
Think you know who will win? Place your bets here!
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