Jonatan Ordoñez from Leon has won the Pokémon GO European Championship, which was held in Utrecht on March 18 and 19, and with this he has qualified to play the World Cup in Japan.
“Of the events that have been held in Europe, it was one of the ones that most people have signed up for,” recalls the victorious Ordoñez. Originally from Sariegos and a resident of the city of León, Jonatan Ordoñez began playing the mobile game since it was launched in 2016.
“The game was different from what it is now, they have improved it. At the beginning there were no fights, it was more oriented to go out, walk and that”, says the Leon. And since the tournaments appeared a year and a half ago, Jonatan has participated in several.
The mobile game, which is part of the wide range of products offered by the successful Pokémon entertainment franchise, has replicated the original idea of the saga. Thus, players could from the beginning capture and collect Pokémon. Later they went a step further to assimilate themselves to fiction by offering the possibility for players to compete against each other.
Per day, Ordoñez points out, up to 25 battles can be played in Pokémon GO. They are individual and the competitors come randomly from all over the planet, which is training for events like the one in Utrecht. But there are also team competitions. In this sense, the man from Leon is part of Amaretto Rioja, a group made up of ten people from all over Spain, with whom he communicates daily with video calls, since they play in the highest European category, although they have not managed to qualify in the world cup. by teams.
On this occasion, the player has been able to succeed individually. Ordoñez wanted to visit the city of the Netherlands with his girlfriend Andrea Martín and he did so “without the intention of going to win”, “I was going to participate and whatever had to come out”, but “things started to come out and when I wanted to Realizing it was one game away from Japan”, although the Dutchman Statastan, also qualified for the Japanese championship, came close to taking first place from him.
“I played without pressure until I saw that it was possible and that’s when I got very nervous”, he points out while assuring that he will go to the World Cup “to enjoy”, because due to the level of future competitors, he jokingly indicates, “probably it will not go beyond the first round”.
Although there are still a few more qualifying phases left, the final in Japan already has 50 participants from all over the world, of which there are three Spaniards. All of them have been first or second in the different regional events organized by Play Pokémon.
The same organization pays for a large part of the trip to Japan. In this sense, Jonatan, a train engineer, assures that he does not live from this game (although there are people who do). It is, in short, a hobby that helps him liven up his breaks, an activity that accompanies him on the long trips he makes when he works and with which he has met many people who are united by his passion for Pokémon Go. .
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