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BLAST Open Porto 2026 preview: schedule, format, teams, and more
BLAST Premier returns to Portugal, but this time it’s breaking new ground. After three stops in Lisbon, BLAST Open Porto 2026 will take the world’s top Counter-Strike 2 teams to Porto for the first time – all fighting for a cut of a $1.1 million prize pool. orlando-books.blog
Taking place right after the Esports World Cup 2026, teams barely have a chance to catch their breath before another stacked field hits the server. With powerhouses like Team Spirit, Falcons, Vitality, MOUZ, and NAVI all making the trip, expect nonstop action throughout. Here’s what you need to know.
When and where is BLAST Open Porto 2026?
BLAST Open Porto 2026 runs from Aug. 26 to Sep. 6, 2026.
The tournament will be split into two stages, beginning with a six-day Group Stage from Aug. 26–31 at the BLAST Studios in Copenhagen. After a short break, six teams will travel to the Super Bock Arena in Porto for the Playoffs, which will take place from Sep. 4–6.
The event marks BLAST’s fourth visit to Portugal, but its first time ever in Porto. The tournament organizer previously held three events in Lisbon, including the BLAST Pro Series in 2018, the BLAST Premier Spring Final in 2022, and the BLAST Open in 2025.
As noted by Programme Director for BLAST Premier, Anne Banschbach, “Bringing BLAST Premier back to Portugal is a special moment for us. Portugal has consistently delivered events with some of the most passionate Counter-Strike fans in the world, and bringing our events to Porto for the first time is another exciting step in a milestone year for BLAST Premier.”
Different city… Same exceptional Portuguese vibes
— BLAST Premier
We are pleased to announce that we're heading to the Super Bock Arena for the BLAST Premier Open Porto on the 4th-6th of September!https://t.co/inGnJOnd7v#BLASTPremier pic.twitter.com/97L7HLkJvk
(@BLASTPremier) March 29, 2026
What is the BLAST Open Porto 2026 format?
The 16 Counter-Strike 2 teams qualified for BLAST Open Porto will initially be divided into two double-elimination groups of eight, with each match played as a best-of-three series. Teams that lose in the Upper Bracket drop into the Lower Bracket, where a subsequent defeat eliminates them from the tournament.
The top three teams from each group will then advance to the single-elimination Playoffs in Porto, from Sep. 4–6. The group winners will receive a bye directly to the Semifinals, while those finishing 2nd and 3rd will begin in the Quarterfinals. All playoff matches are best-of-three, except for the Grand Final, which is best-of-five.
How to watch BLAST Open Porto 2026
You can watch BLAST Open Porto 2026 live across BLAST Premier’s official Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, and Kick channels, with additional regional broadcasts available in multiple languages.
However, you can also join the action live at the Super Bock Arena – Pavilhão Rosa Mota in Porto from Sep. 4–6. You can grab your tickets from Tixr, with single-day tickets priced between €16 and €27, and three-day packages starting at €66.
Which teams are competing at BLAST Open Porto 2026?
Sixteen teams are heading to BLAST Open Porto, 12 of which received direct invites based on their Jul. 6 Valve Regional Standings (VRS). The remaining four teams had to duke it out in regional qualifiers.
| Team | Qualification | VRS ranking* | Recent wins |
| Team Falcons | VRS Global | 2nd – 1944 pts | IEM Cologne Major 2026 |
| Team Spirit | VRS Global | 1st – 2018 pts | PGL Astana 2026 |
| FURIA | VRS Global | 8th – 1766 pts | – |
| Team Vitality | VRS Global | 5th – 1829 pts | BLAST Rivals S1 IEM Rio BLAST Open Rotterdam |
| MOUZ | VRS Global | 4th – 1883 pts | BLAST Bounty S2 |
| Natus Vincere | VRS Global | 6th – 1796 pts | IEM Atlanta ESL Pro League S23 |
| 9z Team | VRS Global | 3rd – 1883 pts | – |
| Aurora Gaming | VRS Global | 13th – 1692 pts | – |
| G2 Esports | VRS Global | 12th – 1693 pts | – |
| BetBoom Team | VRS Global | 9th – 1755 pts | – |
| Legacy | VRS Global | 7th – 1773 pts | CS Asia Championships 2026 |
| FUT Esports | VRS Global | 14th – 1657 pts | – |
| DENDELE | SA Qualifier | 27th – 1494 pts | – |
| Inner Circle | EU Qualifier | 23rd – 1557 pts | – |
| M80 | NA Qualifier | 48th – 1365 pts | – |
| Lynn Vision Esports | Asia Qualifier | 36th – 1440 pts | – |
Note: VRS rankings are accurate as of Aug. 10, 2026. VRS Global qualification for BLAST Open Porto 2026 was determined using the Valve Regional Standings published on Jul. 6, 2026. “Recent Wins” only includes S-Tier tournament victories.
Teams to watch at BLAST Open Porto 2026
While it’s too early to make any definitive calls before CS2 at EWC 2026 kicks off, early prediction markets currently give Team Spirit a 23% implied probability of victory at BLAST Open Porto, narrowly ahead of Team Falcons at 22%.
However, with only around $4,500 in trading volume, these odds should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Team Spirit
Team Spirit (#1 VRS) arguably enters as the favorite, having already made multiple deep runs this year, finishing second at IEM Rio, first at PGL Astana, and second at BLAST Bounty S2. Unsurprisingly, Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets remains a key reason I’d back Spirit.
The 19-year-old prodigy earned the PGL Astana MVP with a massive 1.61 rating and currently boasts a 1.45 rating 3.0 across his last 90 days of professional play. Not to mention, one of the world’s strongest AWPers, Dmitry ’sh1ro’ Sokolov, has also maintained a 1.17 rating over the same period, ready to take over if donk ever has a bad day.
Team Falcons
Having said that, Team Falcons (#2 VRS) certainly has an edge and currently holds the strongest recent trophy on their résumé. They recently became Major champions at IEM Cologne, completing a brutal Playoffs run that included wins over Vitality and Spirit before sweeping FURIA 3–0 for the title.
The team’s individual ceiling is nothing short of frightening. Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov holds a 1.23 rating 3.0 over the past three months, while 18-year-old Maksim ‘kyousuke’ Lukin sits at 1.19. Combined with Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač’s experience and Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen’s leadership, Falcons have more than enough firepower to beat anyone in the field.
What is the BLAST Open Porto 2026 prize pool?
BLAST Open Porto 2026 will feature a hefty $1.1 million prize pool, with $400,000 allocated to player prize money and $700,000 to club share payments. Eight BLAST Frequent Flyer Tokens are also up for grabs, which contribute directly towards each team’s share of the Frequent Flyer Programme payout at the end of the season.
As it stands, roughly 64% of the advertised total will go to esports organizations, while the remaining amount will be distributed to the placement-based player prize pool. Even so, the split is nothing different and reflects the same prize model used at BLAST Open Rotterdam earlier in the year.
Here’s a full breakdown of the prize money distribution:
| Place | Player share | Club share | Prize money | BLAST Frequent Flyer Tokens |
| 1st | $150,000 | $100,000 | $250,000 | 3 |
| 2nd | $60,000 | $100,000 | $160,000 | 1 |
| 3rd–4th | $40,000 | $75,000 | $115,000 | 1 |
| 5th–6th | $20,000 | $55,000 | $75,000 | 1 |
| 7th–8th | $10,000 | $40,000 | $50,000 | – |
| 9th–12th | $7,500 | $25,000 | $32,500 | – |
| 13th–16th | $5,000 | $15,000 | $20,000 | – |
| Grand Total | $400,000 | $700,000 | $1,100,000 | 8 |
FAQs
When is BLAST Open Porto 2026?
BLAST Open Porto will take place from Aug. 26 through Sep. 6, 2026.
Where is BLAST Open Porto 2026?
The opening stage will be played at the BLAST Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark, but the Playoffs will be held at the Super Bock Arena in Porto, Portugal.
How many teams are at BLAST Open Porto 2026?
16 teams are competing at BLAST Open Porto. However, only six will advance to the live-arena Playoffs from Sep. 4–6 at Pavilhão Rosa Mota in Porto.
What is the BLAST Open Porto 2026 prize pool?
BLAST Open Porto 2026 features a $1.1 million prize pool, consisting of $400,000 in player prize money and $700,000 in club share payments. The winning team will receive $150,000 in player prize money alongside a $100,000 club share.
How can I watch BLAST Open Porto 2026?
BLAST Open Porto 2026 will be broadcast live through BLAST Premier’s official channels on Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, and Kick, with additional broadcasts available in multiple languages.
Who won the last BLAST Open?
Team Vitality won BLAST Open Rotterdam 2026 after they defeated Natus Vincere 3–0 in the Grand Final on Mar. 29.
The post BLAST Open Porto 2026 preview: schedule, format, teams, and more appeared first on Esports Insider.
Jordie poses triple threat to Boks
Jordie Barrett’s all-round game and versatility make him the cornerstone of
the All Blacks backline, writes CAMPBELL BURNES in SA Rugby magazine.
You can bet the Springboks will have some plan in place to shut down or at least dull the effectiveness of Jordie Barrett during the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.
The 29-year-old is very much what they these days call a “triple threat”. He can hurt you with either his running, passing or kicking game. The latter includes his goal-kicking from long distance, if perhaps not quite in the Frans Steyn category for long bombs off the tee.
Barrett is one of just three certainties when naming an All Blacks backline, along with scrumhalf Cam Roigard and fullback Will Jordan. That is as much a reflection of the uncertainty and lack of fluency shown by the All Blacks backs through much of 2024-25 in the troubled Scott Robertson tenure as it is about Barrett’s status in the team. New assistant coach Mike Blair, along with new head coach Dave Rennie, will be tasked with sorting this out and helping the All Blacks back division regain its mojo.
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They needn’t worry about Barrett, though. We know he has played fullback, wing and No 10 for the All Blacks, so his versatility is palpable,but he’s coming off a superb season at No 12 for the Super Rugby Pacific-winning Hurricanes, where he was the fulcrum of everything good that their backline produced, be it firing cutout passes off either hand, carting the ball up in the midfield or banging away long touch-finders.
Funnily enough, the competition MVP was Quinn Tupaea, a man who occupies the same inside centre position as Barrett. But it’s a measure of the latter’s standing (from 78 Tests at the start of the international season) that any attempt to start Tupaea will have to involve shoehorning him into outside centre or coming in if Barrett goes down injured.
We spoke on Barrett’s first day in All Blacks camp in late June, having just come down off the high of the Hurricanes’ triumph, his first in nine seasons with his club.
“I’m really proud of the season we had with the Hurricanes,” he says. “Winning a Super Rugby title is no easy feat and I feel like I was playing some of the best rugby of my career, which is nice. So hopefully I can recapture some of my form if given the opportunity with the All Blacks.”
Those last seven words are redundant, of course. He will be given every opportunity in black.
Jordie Barrett’s mother Robyn was pregnant with him when the All Blacks last undertook a full-scale tour of South Africa in 1996, playing eight matches and winning a series (2-1) for the first time there. But Jordie did partake in the time-honoured Kiwi rugby ritual of rising in the early hours of the morning, invariably with his father Kevin and four other brothers, including Beauden and Scott, to watch on TV as the All Blacks locked horns with the Boks through the 2000s and 2010s.
ALSO: Springboks vs All Blacks – Why it matters
“They were probably my earliest rugby memories, getting woken up at three or four in the morning and watching the Tests in South Africa,” says Barrett. “Personally, they were the best ones to watch. Even in Beaudy’s early days of Super Rugby, we’d watch him playing in South Africa for the Hurricanes and it was special to get the opportunity to do that before the South Africans went north.”
Barrett would have to check old clips on YouTube of how former All Blacks No 12s performed in South Africa: Joe Morgan’s slashing solo try in Bloemfontein in 1976 or Walter Little’s solidity on the 1996 tour, for example.
This tour, when first mooted, elicited a positive response by Barrett, so used to the endless treadmill of international rugby where you tend to play the same opponents on the same type of tour.
“When they floated the idea of going to South Africa for six to seven weeks, it was pretty exciting and one you wanted to be part of as a player.”
Barrett debuted for the All Blacks in 2017, but was injured when they infamously blanked the Boks 57-0 in Albany. South Africa were going through a difficult period under Allister Coetzee as head coach.
Times have changed, and how. The Boks are now two-time defending World Cup champions and hold the world No 1 ranking.
“They were probably going through a transition period at that time, but they’re an unbelievable side now with a lot of depth. So it’ll be a great challenge for us when we face the Springboks,” Barrett says. “It’ll be one that fans from both nations and around the world will be watching with a keen eye.”
MORE: ‘Reaching decider would be big win for All Blacks’
His own record against the Boks is mixed, just four wins from 12 Tests.
In his first, at fullback in Wellington in 2018, he famously threw the loose pass that gave the Boks momentum to win a tight one, 36-34.
In the lockdown era of 2021, in the neutral venues of Townsville and the Gold Coast, the two Tests were split 1-1, Barrett again at the back.
It was the same in 2022 in South Africa, the All Blacks saving Ian Foster’s bacon with a determined victory at Ellis Park.
In 2023, with the No 12 jersey on his back, Barrett had a win and two losses in three Tests, the second loss being the World Cup final, a 12-11 cliffhanger in which he missed a late long-range penalty goal, while Handré Pollard was unerring off the tee.
In 2024, despite losing both Tests in South Africa, the All Blacks did not feel far away from the Boks. Then in 2025 we saw contrasting displays by the All Blacks, a brutal, gritty 24-17 win at Eden Park (to extend the unbeaten streak there to 50 at the time) when the Boks were not on song, and then a 43-10 second-spell capitulation in Wellington, the worst defeat, in more ways than one, in All Blacks Test history.
Understandably, Barrett was not keen to dwell on the Wellington result.
“It was hard to take, but a week earlier we beat them at Eden Park and that was one of my greatest memories as an All Black,” he says. “It’s easy to look at losses, and they are ones that do stay with you in your career, but also keenly reflect on some of the good wins I’ve had against the Springboks. It shows that it is possible.”
Barrett used to mark the gifted counter-attacker Willie le Roux earlier in his career when he was cast as a fullback.
In more recent times he has come up against the seasoned and highly effective midfield duo of Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel. Another option now is the hybrid, André Esterhuizen. None of that trio will freely give Barrett a moment’s peace on the field.
“Damian de Allende, in particular, has been outstanding for a long time, Jesse Kriel has been there for a number of years, André Esterhuizen too. They are guys I have marked for a good part of my career and I have a lot of respect for,” he says.
Barrett agrees that Test rugby against the Springboks is the hardest physical match-up that he faces. It has been that way for 105 years. This versatile performer, who could raise the 100 Test mark at next year’s World Cup, looms as a key figure in the latest chapter of this storied rivalry.
FREE DIGI-MAG: All Blacks tour special
Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images
The post Jordie poses triple threat to Boks appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Malawi seal World Cup spot after reaching Women’s Africa Cup of Nations semis
RABAT, Morocco, August 10, 2026 – Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon and Malawi have all qualified for the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) in Morocco is also acting as a qualifying tournament for next summer’s tournament, with any country that makes the semi-finals earning their places at the World Cup.
Algeria beat 10-player Ivory Coast 2-1, with goals from Ines Khiri and Amira Ould Braham – after N’Sira Oudraogo was sent off when the Ivorians were 1-0 ahead – to reach the Wafcon last four and qualify for a Women’s World Cup for the first time.
Goals from Sakina Ouzraoui Diki and Hanane Ait El Haj helped Morocco defeat South Africa 2-1 to claim their place, with Cameroon securing a 1-0 victory over Nigeria thanks to a spectacular 30-yard free-kick from 19-year-old Myriam Nyadjou.
The fourth spot was taken by Malawi, 153rd in the world rankings, who caused a huge shock by beating Ghana 2-1, coming from behind with goals from Temwa Chawinga and Rose Kadzere.
The Wafcon semi-finals will take place on Wednesday with Morocco taking on Cameroon before Algeria meet Malawi.
The four nations that lost in the Wafcon quarter-finals – Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and South Africa – still have a chance to qualify for the World Cup.
On Thursday, Ivory Coast play Ghana and Nigeria will face South Africa with the two winners going into the 10-nation intercontinental play-offs in November and December.
Out of those 10 countries in the play-offs, three will qualify for next summer’s World Cup, which begins on 24 June and ends on 25 July.
England, Republic of Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all still have a chance of qualifying from the European play-offs, which will take place from October to December.
Each of those five sides would need to win two two-legged ties to qualify.
There will be 32 nations competing at the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil and 18 of the qualifiers are now known.
Countries that have qualified for the 2027 Women’s World Cup so far…
Africa – Algeria, Cameroon, Malawi, Morocco.
Asia – Australia, China, Japan, North Korea, Philippines, South Korea.
Europe – Denmark, France, Germany, Spain.
Oceania – New Zealand.
South America – Argentina, Brazil (hosts), Colombia.
Mercato : Ilan Kebbal affole l’Angleterre !
Ilan Kebbal pourrait bien être l’un des joueurs algériens les plus courtisés dans cette dernière ligne droite du mercato. Alors que son avenir au Paris FC demeure incertain, le milieu offensif international algérien suscite un intérêt grandissant de l’autre côté de la Manche, avec notamment Burnley qui vient de se positionner sur son profil.
The post Mercato : Ilan Kebbal affole l’Angleterre ! appeared first on Football Algérien - DZFOOT.COM.
Mercato : Mehdi Dorval vers un nouveau départ en Italie ?
Le mercato de Mehdi Dorval pourrait connaître un nouveau tournant dans les prochaines heures. Alors que le latéral algérien était récemment annoncé dans le viseur de plusieurs formations, notamment en France, c’est finalement en Italie que son avenir pourrait s’écrire. Le Catanzaro a clairement manifesté son intérêt pour le joueur du SSC Bari et semble désormais déterminé à boucler son recrutement.
The post Mercato : Mehdi Dorval vers un nouveau départ en Italie ? appeared first on Football Algérien - DZFOOT.COM.