Lahore: After years of gaining prestige and fame for accolades and individual performances, a team of the best Tekken players from Pakistan won an international trophy together in Riyadh – and it took years of hard work to get there.

The final standings at the Nations Cup held in Riyadh last week, the first ever nationwide Tekken tournament, showed Pakistan in the lead, unbeaten, with the rest of the world looking on in awe. The event, called Gamers8, was organized by the Saudi Arabian Electronic Sports Federation, and brought together 16 national teams from around the world.

South Korea ranked second, Japan ranked third, and the United States ranked fourth. Team Pakistan got an impressive prize money of $500,000 for finishing first.

But this was not the first time that Pakistan had reached the pinnacle of professional Tekken. Arsalan ‘Ash’ Siddique is considered one of the best players in the world, winning the Evo Japan Championship in 2019 and 2023, and the Evo World Championship in 2019. Atif Butt won the Tekken World Tour in 2022, and Imran Khan won, who finished the tournament. Riyadh Championship without losing a single match, and came in second place in the 2022 Evo World Championship.

But the victory of the trio took many years, since Siddiq started a training camp with other players and trained them in Lahore, after his first international victory in 2019.

“It started as a little dream,” he told Arab News in a phone interview Thursday. “Now after all the training camps, all the practices, we’ve finally done it, we’ve proven that Pakistan has the strongest Tekken community in the world.”

The $500,000 prize money was something not even a veteran champion like Siddiq had seen before.

“It’s not the first time I’ve played in Riyadh, but it’s the biggest tournament I’ve ever seen, with such prize money,” he said.

On his way to winning the prize, Siddig and his teammates had to beat Korean players “Knee” – the highest paid Tekken player of all time – “Ulsan” and “Chikurin”. Al-Siddiq said most international finals end up being fought between players from Pakistan and South Korea.

In addition to Red Bull Gaming, Champion is co-sponsored by Twisted Minds, the Saudi-based esports team, adding to the pressure of winning:

“I had to do well, to repay their faith. Twisted Minds is one of the biggest esports teams in the Middle East. So, I felt like I was representing two countries instead of one.”

The funny thing is, I was entering tournaments with these guys [his current teammates]”Usually you hope someone loses so you don’t have to face them in the next round,” Siddique said with a laugh. “But this time our feelings were clear, we wanted to win together so we were doing everything together, strategizing together.”

Siddig said he is now looking forward to the 2023 Evo World Championships in Las Vegas.

“Imran Khan is confirmed to travel, I’m going, and the rest, well, we’re trying to arrange visas for them,” said Siddique, who has had visa problems before, and missed two tournaments in Europe.

Teammate Atif Butt, who is part of the winning ride, said he had been struggling with visa issues before the Vegas tournament.

“for me [Jordanian] sponsors and I try to figure [the visa situation] But you know, there are already time restrictions, there are only 30 days left.”

“Look how the Saudi government made all of this happen with its esports initiative. Our government should do the same.”

But Pat hasn’t let the uncertainty detract from what he’s achieved or wants in the future: “Everyone’s out there [Riyadh] We wanted to bring the cup back to their countries, we also wanted to prove ourselves in the community, and prove that we are the best region in the world [in Tekken]. “

Like the bot, Imran Khan is also supported by Jordan-based FATE Esports. Calm of the trio said the team had “some difficulties” during the tournament but changed character choices and “experimented a bit” to overcome them.

The “difficulties” of a player who went through the entire tournament without losing a single match?

“It’s just luck you know, it doesn’t mean I’m the best player in the world but all together Pakistan are the strongest.”