Interview with Yannis “LIMOOX”, representing Vitality during the Playstation tournament “Pro for a Day”
His name is Yannis Chalal, he is 18 years old and he lives in Saint-Étienne. A FIFA player for the OneX Esport team for a short time, he plays in-game under the pseudonym LIMOOX. Last month, by participating in the Playstation “Pro for a Day” tournaments, he became a Vitality player for one tournament, an experience he agreed to talk about for us in a short interview.
– How long have you been playing FIFA?
I started very young, because I've been playing FIFA since I was 6 years old, which is still ⅔ of my life to practice. It came quite naturally to me, because I'm passionate about football, FIFA quickly became an obvious choice.
– You are a player in a structure, you already have some experience, which competitions have you participated in?
I had the opportunity to participate in the French championship in 2020, the eLigue 2020. I qualified as a representative of ASSE, the club of my city. My very first LAN tournament was the Gamers Assembly of Poitiers in 2019, but I also remember a great 4th place at the Occitanie Esports, also in 2019.
– In which qualifier did you manage to win your place for the Vitality final?
In the second qualifier I won my place for the Vitality final.
– How did your journey go in the first part of the tournament, to become the representative of Team Vitality?
I earned my spot in the Vitality finals in the 2nd qualifier. In the first match of the finals, I got scared because of a bug that prevented me from having the lineup I wanted to play with, but I managed to get away with a small 1-0. I had a few scares in the 2nd match as well, as I was down 2-0 until the 72nd minute before coming back.
The rest was a bit easier, until the final, which was a bit of a strange match. I took the lead in the first half by being dominated, then I also got beaten in the second half while I was dominating. We had to go to penalties despite some good chances in extra time. In the end I managed to win on a penalty kick from Gueye, I will remember that one haha.
– How did the national final go? Your journey, your feelings about your 2nd place?
I unfortunately fell in the first match, on a somewhat crazy scenario. I scored at the start of the match, but the goal was disallowed for offside. I conceded a goal immediately afterwards. I managed to get back into the game, but a somewhat bizarre recovery at the end of the match cost me dearly and I had no more time to come back. I still managed to stay focused on what came next and raise my level of play enough to continue, despite the lack of success at times, to secure this 2nd place.
– What do you remember from this experience? How does it feel to be able to say that you played a tournament on your favorite game as a Team Vitality player?
It's really a chance and a pride to represent the biggest structure in the world, I know that many people would have liked to be in my place. Since I've been following the competition, I always had in mind to play for Vitality, to be able to represent them on FIFA. It's a very strong symbol for me to have been able to share my passions which are football and esports by evolving under the colors of the world reference that is Vitality.