Team Spirit wins IEM Cologne 2025

Team Spirit has won Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Cologne 2025 after defeating MOUZ in the Grand Final in front of a sold-out Lanxess Arena.

Team Spirit swept aside MOUZ in relatively swift fashion, securing a 3-0 victory after the latter recorded a shock victory against the favourites Team Vitality in the semi-finals.

Team Spirit opened its pick of Mirage with a strong defence, racing to an 8-2 lead after ten rounds of the first half. The defence continued to hold strong, with Team Spirit ending the first half with a 10-2 advantage, leaving MOUZ with a tall mountain to climb.

The second pistol round went in favour of MOUZ as it laid the foundations for a potential comeback. However, foundations were knocked down thanks to Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets breaking through the A site, but the trading continued to favour MOUZ as it began to reduce the deficit.

Any chance of a comeback was dashed by a standout performance from Leonid ‘chopper’ Vishnyakov to secure Mirage with a 13-7 scoreline to take the early lead in the best-of-five series.

Similar to Mirage, Team Spirit started Ancient with four consecutive round wins before MOUZ broke the streak in round five. Four defensive rounds from MOUZ levelled the map and broke Team Spirit’s economy, resulting in the Germain organisation leading 8-4 at the end of the first half. Team Spirit opened the second round with a victory on pistols but struggled to halt the MOUZ attacks. 

Team Spirit responded in round 18 to close the gap to 11-7 in a bid to turn the tide of map two in its favour. Four defensive rounds in a row kept Spirit in contention to overturn MOUZ’s lead, which continued to dwindle until round 22, when Spirit equalised thanks to donk winning a pivotal one-versus-one post-plant duel.

The spirit of MOUZ broke in round 24, with Team Spirit overcoming the early deficit to lock down Ancient 13-11 and move within one map of victory.

For MOUZ, its map three pick of Nuke was a must-win. An opening pistol victory got the ball rolling, with the first three rounds falling in favour of MOUZ. Team Spirit responded with five rounds of its own, taking the lead, and forcing MOUZ into its first time-out.

Spirit’s defence continued to halt any kind of MOUZ attack, resulting in the lead building to 8-4 by the end of the first half. Some clinical attacking strategy from Team Spirit saw it maintain the lead. MOUZ was unable to answer the ruthless aggression of Spirit’s attack, as the team secured Nuke 13-6 to complete the 3-0 sweep.

After a standout performance throughout the tournament, donk earned its MVP award, cementing his place among the world’s best Counter-Strike 2 players.

After winning IEM Cologne, Team Spirit secures $400,000 (~£301,182) in prize money along with all-important Valve Regional Standings (VRS) points that determine which teams qualify for the Budapest Major in November.