flusha, Golden return to fnatic

fnatic have announced that they have completed their roster with the double signing of Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist and Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim.

flusha joins fnatic on a permanent basis, while Golden has been recruited on a loan deal from Cloud9 that is valid until the end of the year.

With these two signings, fnatic finally complete their roster, which had been depleted to three players since the benching of Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström and Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson in the aftermath of a failed qualification campaign for the StarLadder Major.

At the time, team manager Andreas "⁠Samuelsson⁠" Samuelsson - who has since taken over as head coach - stated that fnatic were looking to bring in "at least one young player" to ensure long-term stability. But the UK-based organisation ended up going in a different direction as they picked two players well into their 20s and with history under the black and orange banner.

flusha won nine Big Events with fnatic, including three Majors, between 2013 and 2018. He went on to join Cloud9 but his time with the North American organisation came to an end after just six months as he decided to take a break from competition following the sudden passing of his mother.

"It feels great to be back in Fnatic, where most of my fondest CS:GO memories were created - and, hopefully, there will be even more in the future," the 26-year-old told fnatic's website.

"We all made some mistakes in the past that we have learned from and I believe we have all matured and become more professional since both mine and Golden’s departure from Fnatic last year.

"During my break from the CS:GO scene, I reflected a lot upon the negative and positive things that I showed in my entire professional esports career and I have tried to now focus on what once made me one of the best players in the world.

"I’m excited to come back to play with some of the best players I have ever played with and especially to be beside such a young talent in Brollan. Hopefully, we can all show him the experience we have and teach him everything we know to make sure he becomes the best player in the world at some point!"

Golden came through fnatic's first academy project and was promoted to the main squad in the summer of 2017 following Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer's departure to FaZe. He led fnatic to victory at IEM Katowice 2018 - ending a two-year title drought for the organisation - and at the WESG 2017 Finals before being removed to make way for William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin in the team, who by then already had a new in-game leader in Xizt.

He moved to North America to play for Cloud9 but was forced to sit out a handful of events due to health problems. In June, he was loaned out to Ninjas in Pyjamas to play at the StarLadder Major, where the team would be eliminated in the New Legends Stage without a single victory.

fnatic will make their first appearance with the new line-up at 17:00 against Heretics in the first week of ECS Season 8. The team's next LAN event will be DreamHack Masters Malmö, which will take place from October 1-6.

With these two signings, fnatic now have:

Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell
Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson
Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin
Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist
Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim (loan)

Andreas "⁠Samuelsson⁠" Samuelsson (coach)

Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström (benched)
Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson (benched)