Two days ago the ESWC organising committee sent out five direct invites to the grand finals in October to teams around the world, however the didn't reveal which teams had received said invites.

The tournament is expected to be one of the biggest and most prestigious since the competitive CS:S scene was born and with just 12 slots available every team in the world is chasing a spot in the coveted tournament. Due to the fact that Europe will have its very own qualifying tournament - making four slots available for European teams - the organising committee behind the event chose to directly invite three American teams and two from Europe.

Hours after the invitations were sent out Team Dynamic revealed they were one of the lucky invitees, with Cyber Revolution and Check-Six soon following their lead. The European teams kept relatively quiet and it wasn't until a few hours ago that we found out exactly who had received invites. The first European team to earn a direct invitation was Danish side CKRAS, and moments later the second invitation was sent out to the Fins of Virus, the team who ironically used to represent CKRAS.

We spoke to both teams after learning the news and were given some words from representatives.

Statement from CKRAS Gaming's, Lars Holm "h0lm" Jespersen":

"We are looking forward to attending this year's ESWC, and hope to represent not only CKRAS Gaming, but also Denmark, very well. Despite only 12 teams attending, it looks very promising considering the callibre of those 12 teams, and we are especially pleased to have the opportunity to play versus the North American teams. See you there!"

CKRAS Gaming are:

Steffen '3k2' Markussen
René 'cajun' Borg
Henrik 'FeTiSh' Christensen
Lars Holm 'h0lm' Jespersen
Bo 'wantz' Vestergaard

Virus Gaming's manager, Mikael "unef0is" Miettinen, had the following to say:

"It's an honour to get an invite to this tournament, one of the biggest and most prestigious Electronic Sports tournaments in the world. At first we weren't even sure whether or not we had recieved an invite, when Cadred first published the list of teams. I didn't get a notification from ESWC but everything has been cleared up now and I have the confirmation email. We will however still participate in the online qualifier.

Everyone in our team stated, when ESWC announced it would be hosting a Source tournament, that they wanted to attend the event. I truly believe that the tournament will be one of the most important events of not only their careers but the history of the game itself.

The team has started to practice and will be bootcamping for a few days before the LAN. They are only focussed on practicing for ESWC at the moment and I'll try to do as much as possible to allow them to play.

See you at ESWC!"

Virus Gaming are:

Juha 'aNGeldusT' Kurppa
Ville 'CISU' Leppälä
Taneli 'disturbed' Veikkola
Olli 'kononen' Salmi
Christer 'nashje' Loukas

Both teams will be joining VeryGames, LDLC, Online Kingdom, Team Dynamic, Cyber Revolution, Check-Six and four more qualifiers at the main event this October. Don't miss it.