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Everything was set for the ESWC grand finals, groups had been drawn, the schedule had been made, but of course nothing could go down this easily.

After issues with visas and travel expenses a few teams are forced to watch the action instead of participating. Punto.cl, Incredibles and Green Troop were unable to secure visas for the USA. Dragon and EYESports were unable to find the funding to take the long trip to San Jose. This left ESWC with a broken groupplay as one group had only 3 teams, and others had 5. Therefore ESWC took the consequence of the lower than expected turnout and balanced the groups to 4 teams in each. This means that Xuxan was moved from group B to group H, luckily this was the only change needed to even out the groups. With the groups of only 4 teams instead of the original 5 ESWC decided to change the schedule as well, matches will now be played at 10, 11 and 12 local time, only needing 3 rounds instead of 4 should make the entire tournament more likely to be on time.

But the problems to not stop here, Chinese top team wNv are forced to go without Sakula as he was unable to travel into the USA due to his passport expiring within the next 6 months. The Chinese top team will use xpy (former TR.victory) during the ESWC 2008 Grand Finals. This could prove devastating to a potential top5 team at this years ESWC. fnatic also ran into a bit of trouble losing their luggage when arriving in San Jose. Whether they had learned from past teams in the same situation and brought their gaming equipment in their hand luggage remains unknown.

All matches, lineups, bets and groups on HLTV.org have been updated to reflect the changes to the tournament. HLTV.org will be in San Jose to cover ESWC Grand Final 25-27th of August. So lock your doors and stay at home, we will be your home during the entire event with HLTV, betting, scores, standings, demos and photos.