He didn’t smile at the press conference, cleaning his face with a small white tissue every couple of seconds. Only he knows if it were tears, or just the sweat coming from the heat of at least 25 cameras and the light, in the small room just besides the stage. He was just the contrast to the smiling and cheering Grubby, that was answering question after question. It left Moon as a gray shadow in the room. Yet again he had failed to win this very tournament.

Moon, the greatest WC3-player of our time, having more victories than anybody else on the circuit, is not able to win the "Olympics of Videogames" – the World Cyber Games. Once again everybody is telling him, that next year it will be his time.

When one of the journalists is asking him about the game he lost just minutes ago, Moon breaks the silence, but only barely. He is congratulating Grubby, confessing that he couldn’t sleep all-night because he felt such a pressure and was looking for one of those strategies with which he could beat his teammate in the Grand Final. He couldn’t find the perfect solutions to Grubby's game style though, and the missing hours of sleep were the reason why he started making mistakes.

In the first game he was still fresh, being able to come back out of a difficult situation, but as the match went longer and the audience was getting louder, because they felt the intensiveness of the duel, it was just getting more and more difficult for the Korean superstar. In the end he just couldn’t keep up with the intensity Grubby was driven by, in and outside of the game.
 
While Grubby's raiders were attacking Moon's base every couple of minutes and his heroes were gaining experience, you could see how the audience was enjoying the game. The Germans were cheering for their European superstar. They knew that Grubby didn’t win a big tournament for a long time and was desperate for another moment of victory. On the other hand they saw Moon as the always winning, emotionless player he was for such a long time - a machine that doesn’t make mistakes.

But that’s not the Moon you see at the World Cyber Games backstage. He is on the cell phone talking for minutes after every game, smiling and enjoying the interviews.

It doesn’t take much time before the first rumors about a girlfriend back in Korea are floating around. Moon is not the shy Asian, he was in the past, anymore. Now he is open to talk, and you don’t get the feeling that he still feels that it is a burden to speak English. Now Moon is acting like a world citizen.

Just one hour after the press conference you can see Moon at the Farewell party. In this room full of players of all different nations, the Koreans are at a table in the middle. Making pictures of the WCG Nations Trophy and talking to some of the representatives from WCG's sponsors and interested journalists who want to know how they are living in the nation of the video games, Korea.

But Moon is standing together with FoCuS – his former teammate at MeetYourMakers – in one of the corners of the room. Having a glass of apple juice in his hands and talking to other players from different nations. He is trying to be the host, offering juice from the table besides him and doing small-talk in English. When the clips from this WCG starts at the big screen, Moon is watching it and enjoys a moment when he is seen on scene, winning a match in the group stage.

It looks like he will be even more desperate to win this very trophy next year. Should he stand in a Grand Final next year in Chengdu, the crowd will support him unless he is facing a Chinese player. Because Moon deserves the title. But from deserving to winning, there is still a long way to go.

The official "Farewell Party" was already over the peak and most journalists in their hotels, drinking the long-awaited beer, when the WCG-champion Manuel ‘Grubby’ Schenkhuizen was still answering questions. You couldn’t count all the questions anymore.

He answered in English, Dutch and German, tried to be open for every request and enjoyed those hours after "the most anticipated victory" of his career with his family – smiling in between breaks, looking through the pictures from him on the stage and trying to let them be part of everything.

For his mother, brother and his girlfriend, the World Cyber Games in Cologne were a step into a world they just saw on TV and talked about. "My mom follows almost every tournament from home", was one of those answers Grubby said into the cameras and showed how happy he was, that she was able to see this very tournament from the audience. While Grubby was just smiling, running over the stage with the Dutch flag and posing for all those cameras, his family was trying to get closer to him.

During the match they were almost hidden in the audience, had it not been for the big poster that gave away their location. It wasn't only the camera that were finding his mother and his girlfriend Cassandra 'PpG' Ng all the time, Grubby was also looking for them between the maps. It wasn't just the victory that made his day so special; his family turned it into one of those days you will never forget.

Cassandra 'PpG' Ng is not only supporting him as girlfriend, but also trying to help him with his game. She is proofreading his tactical concepts and observes possible opponents in the tournament. At the event she is always helping him and tries to take care of everything that he needs. Something not every player has.

On the stage during the prize ceremony there was another of those moments, where you could see how much importance this tournament had. Every WCG winner got his very own laptop from Samsung. While most champions were just trying to figure out how to cheer with flowers, laptop and some video games in their hands, Grubby was just stunned when he saw, that he would get a new computer as well. "He wanted to win this tournament so badly, that he didn’t care for the prizes", adds his brother when he saw the picture of the surprised Grubby.

Later in the evening, his family had something else planned for him. Grubby wasn’t going home with the train on Monday, but got squeezed into the little car and went home on Sunday night. With lots of luggage, five persons and the anticipation to sleep at home again, they got into the car. A pleasant end of a perfect weekend for the Orc superstar.