FANTIC VS BIG CS:GO BETTING & MATCH DETAILS
CSGO Betting Odds:	Fnatic $1.31 at GG Bet | BIG $3.20 at GG Bet
CSGO Betting Lines:	Fnatic -1.5 at $1.97 | BIG +1.5 at $1.76
When:	March 17, 2020 at 22:15 CET
Watch Live:	Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/esl_csgo)

FNATIC VS BIG ESL PRO LEAGUE SEASON 11 BETTING PREVIEW

Fnatic and BIG will meet this Tuesday in the last fixture of the opening matches in Group B at ESL Pro League Season 11. It will mark their first clash since October 2019, when Fnatic defeated BIG at Esports Championship Series Season 8 – Europe.

Fnatic have come a long way since they acquired Maikil “Golden” Selim and Robin “flusha” R?nnquist back in September 2019. Although the arrival of two CS:GO veterans was accepted with a lot of scepticism at first, the duo quickly proved their experience and synergy was exactly what the team needed.

Since September, Fnatic have won DreamHack Masters Malm? 2019, finished second at both StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 8 and the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, and ended the year with a top-four placement at the Esports Championship Series Season 8 Finals and a silver medal at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals. Fnatic made it to the semi-finals at the Intel Extreme Masters XIV World Championship in February and most recently put up a commanding run at the Europe Minor Championship – Rio 2020: Closed Qualifier, where they lost only one map throughout the whole tournament.

Fnatic’s surge in form catapulted them from 21st place in the CS:GO esports world rankings to second in December, which marked the first time they ranked as a top-five team since April 2018. As it stands now, Fnatic are ranked sixth in the world behind Team Liquid, G2 Esports, mousesports, Astralis and the IEM Katowice champions, Natus Vincere.

BIG were supposed to compete in FLASHPOINT but withdrew from the tournament at the last minute and instead decided to attend ESL Pro League Season 11. In terms of their chances of winning anything, however, it might have been better if they’d remained at FLASHPOINT.

Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz and co. were seeded into a very tough ESL Pro League group, featuring Natus Vincere, forZe, Complexity, North and Fnatic. It would be fair to say Fnatic are the second-strongest team in Group B behind NaVi, so facing the Swedes in game one and NaVi in game two might be a positive for BIG, who will have a chance to put all their energy into the last three fixtures and hope they can secure a top-three seed.

BIG went though some massive roster changes at the turn of the year and produced quite a remarkable run through FLASHPOINT qualifiers, but their performances at the Europe Minor Championship – Rio 2020: Closed Qualifier and ESEA Season 33: Premier Division – Europe: Regular Season were very iffy.

A ninth-12th place finish at Minor Championship qualifiers and losses to AGO (6-16) and Sprout (14-16) at ESEA earlier this month suggest BIG are not in the best shape ahead of their ESL Pro League S11 endeavour. As such, it seems like they will be fighting an uphill battle against Fnatic.

FNATIC VS BIG ESL PRO LEAGUE SEASON 11 BETTING PREDICTIONS

Fnatic have the better form rating, a 3-2 record in their last five and are higher rated than BIG. The German squad, however, have produced a slightly higher average rating over last three months (1.092) compared to Fnatic (1.082), but the difference is negligible and it’s worth noting that Fnatic have played significantly stronger opponents.

Looking at the map pool, BIG hold a better win rate on Inferno (73% – 67%), Nuke (89% – 0%) and Vertigo (50% – 0%). What’s more, BIG are on a six-map winning streak on Nuke and have played more games on Mirage (16), where they won nine (56%), while Fnatic have played only three and won them all.

Despite the better map pool, it’s hard to side with BIG over Fnatic. There is a chance BIG might edge out one map, but their form is less than inspiring. Side with the Swedish squad to repeat their success from ECS and claim another clean sweep.