Movistar Riders and bladE part ways

14-12-2023 18:28

The Spanish squad and its longtime coach, who is becoming a free agent, will no longer be together in 2024.

bladE leaves the team after a five-year stint

Movistar Riders and their longtime coach, Galder "⁠bladE⁠" Barcena, are parting ways after a five-year partnership during which the Spanish side went from a regional powerhouse to an international contender.

Under the 36-year-old's orders the jinetes became the first Spanish team to win international events, namely ESL Challenger Valencia 2022 and ESL Challenger Melbourne 2023. They were also the first to qualify for a Major and spent 55 weeks among the HLTV ranking's top 30 teams, peeking in the top 5 after reaching the IEM Cologne 2022 semi-finals.

During his time in the organization, bladE saw the squad go from a full Spanish side with the likes of Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas and Christian "⁠loWel⁠" Garcia Antoran to an international lineup including Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes and Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield before returning to a Spanish core that finally took off under the leadership of Alejandro "⁠alex⁠" Masanet with a blossoming Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García.

Riders have struggled to keep up form since losing SunPayus and alex to international sides, and most recently also parted ways with the 9z-bound Antonio "⁠MartinezSa⁠" Martinez. Now, on top of the search for a new AWPer, the Spanish squad will have to adapt to a new skipper going into 2024.

Movistar Riders is:

David "⁠dav1g⁠" Granado Bermudo
Alejandro "⁠mopoz⁠" Fernández-Quejo Cano
Adam "⁠adamS⁠" Marian
Tiago "⁠JUST⁠" Moura

tough loss

2023-12-14 18:28

4 replies

rip movistar, first alex, martinez, now bladE were such a fun team to root for

2023-12-14 18:35

2 replies

:( So sad, now what are we gonna do

2023-12-14 19:32

+1 sad day for Spaniards

2023-12-14 19:58

should've stayed in NAVI

2023-12-14 19:47

Xizt to Riders incoming

2023-12-14 18:30

6 replies

Can they afford Xizt and any free agents that he was to build around?

2023-12-14 19:06

5 replies

No, we barely got anything from Martinez and alex, their contracts were close to expire, so sad this situation.

2023-12-14 19:33

You gotta rely on free agent, it's gonna be difficult

2023-12-14 19:38

Shucks. This is not looking good. I have faith though. It'll take a while, but I think that Movistar Riders can build a competent CS2 roster just like how the Spanish CS 1.6 scene was. They had a few decent teams that could put up fights against the rest of the world.

2023-12-14 20:08

I hope so dude

2023-12-14 20:48

1 reply

I'm going to remain hopeful that Spain as well as all other countries will be able to build competent teams for CS2. International rosters are the "current meta" and will foreseeably be the "future meta", but national teams that can compete at the top of Tier 1 CS is also possible.

2023-12-14 20:50