The UK have finally broken their duck, winning the ESL Nations Championship for the first time ever.

Previous years have seen the UK team among the favourites but each time something has happened to prevent the team making it to the latter stages, this time round there were no such problems as the team secured their spot in the LAN finals without any issues. Once there it looked like a tough draw, with many people worried about the lack of practice the team UK players had recently it was feared that the team would be heading home early. Those fears were put to bed quickly as they saw off a resilient German side in clinical fashion, in truth the result of the Germany match doesn't tell the full story, it was a one sided affair and despite a blip on the second map team UK looked dominant throughout.

In the other semi final it would be the French vs the Danish. Before the match began the French fans and spectators were as confident as ever of seeing their team storm to victory, but the Scandinavians had other ideas. In a tight first map it was the Danes who came out on top, much to the despair of the French fans. Despite the incredible performance of one Richard 'shoxie' Papillon the French eventually fell to the might of FeTiSh and his troops, going down 16-6 on the second map. Setting up a clash between Denmark and the UK in today's final.

The Danes were arguably the most well practiced team ahead of these LAN finals and seeing them up against an unprepared and under practiced UK side many expected a walkover. Once again the talent of the British players shone through however, with both Sam 'RattlesnK' Gawn and Dan 'Re1ease' Mullan in blistering form the Danish side had no answer to them. The first map was a fairly close affair and it was team UK who took a narrow 8-7 lead into the T side, on de_dust2 that could be considered a good half. They followed it up with some great aggressive play, George 'hudzG' Hoskins pulling the strings with a number of important frags to open up the round. Eventually the lead was unassailable for the team Denmark, who looked consigned to defeat by the end.

Map number two was de_nuke, a map that saw the UK lose their cool, and their brains, against team Germany yesterday. Starting on the T side is never easy but thanks to some great pistol work from that man Re1ease the UK had a platform to build from. Storming into a 5-0 lead the Danes were on the ropes, with the score sitting at 8-3 it looked like a complete walkover was on the cards but eventually the Danish nerves settled and they fought their way back into it, pipping the Brits back to 8-6 before team UK won the final round of the half.

The UK were sitting pretty at 9-6 up and a win on the pistol round looked like it would be enough to do it, an early buy round on the third proved costly for the Danes as team UK used it to go 5-0 up once again, needing just 2 rounds to win. They were made to wait for their victory though as Denmark picked up the next round, when the UK went 6-1 up the Danes had already given up, expectedly the next round went to team UK as they secured their spot as ENC champions.

It will go a long way to prove that the UK is full of talented and capable players, and despite having a rather weak domestic scene it certainly isn't down to the level of the players. Although the other sides could have fielded stronger lineups it will come as a boost to the legions of British players and fans.

Final Standings:

United Kingdom - Re1ease, hudzG, HenryG, Hughsy, RattlesnK - €5,000
Denmark - FeTiSh, wantz, gravityy, h0lm, 3k2 - €2,500
France - shoxie, RegnaM, RpK, SmithZz, bistouflyyy - €1,800
4th: Germany - hossa, nooky, osirisbash, sYrox, ph0s - €1,100