News has emerged that five-time Major winning coach zonic will be departing BLAST.tv Paris Major winners Vitality for Saudi Arabian organisation Falcons.
The Danish legend, who coached Astralis to four Majors and an Intel Grand Slam told Dexerto “My ultimate goal is to try to win a Major in all three games, 1.6 as a player, then CS:GO and CS2 as a coach.”
First reported by KRL, the move seemed too shocking to be true at first, although zonic, and Vitality CS:GO Performance Manager Lars Robl who will be joining with him, revealed the reasoning behind their decision to Luis Mira.
Describing the reason to move as 'mid and long term', zonic acknowledges that "short term, I’m part of the best team in the world right now".
It's hard to argue, Vitality contains ZywOo, who, with his 1.30 HLTV rating this year seems destined to claim his third number one in their top twenty, and alongside star rifle duo Spinx and Magisk, the team won both IEM Rio and the BLAST.tv Paris Major earlier this year.
They also recently signed flameZ, a move that sought to secure the longevity of the lineup as they replaced dupreeh, a man ten years his elder.
"Why not try and challenge myself yet again by going to a team that will start from a lower competitive rank and try to build them up into one of the best in the world?" - zonic
zonic, despite setting out a huge challenge for himself, is reasonable about his expectations of when he can hope to succeed in his mission.
"I think it would be foolish to go in and say, ‘We can qualify for the Major, and Falcons’ ambition is to win the Major in Copenhagen,' I think that would be stupid and not very responsible." zonic said, he then added "But that was also the case for Vitality when I joined. I also said the first year would be rough, and that was despite me having a super team under me."
Falcons are currently ranked 55th in the world, and in the recent play break, recruited the likes of BOROS, lauNX, and mhL to their project that included French legends NBK- and bodyy.
A mixture of youthful potential and the necessary experience to help them achieve that potential, zonic says that each player will be given a "fair chance" to prove that they can perform to the level the team will need.
"I need to evaluate all the players, have talks with them, see how they play, how they function." - zonic
zonic has already coached his last tournament for Vitality. He informed the players of his departure during the recent ESL Pro League Season 18. It is currently unclear as to who will be standing behind the team during IEM Sydney, and possibly even BLAST Premier Fall Final.
He is set to join Falcons on November 1st.
"Falcons have a long-term project, they also understand that. They have a really solid and professional organization. They hired Danny. They hired me. ‘That’s the project. Make it work.'" - Lars Robl
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