In the world of professional Counter-Strike, quitting your job to focus on the game isn’t enough to guarantee keeping your spot on the team.
That’s the lesson learned by Mathieu “Maniac” Quiquerez, who was released from Titan today in favor of Belgian player Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom. The move also marks Benrlitom’s departure from Gamers2, formerly known as Kinguin.
The loss for Gamers2 is accompanied by seemingly conflicting statements from the organization and Benrlitom. In a statement, team manager Jamie “z1n0” Bach alluded to the team having made a group decision to make the change to combat the side’s long-standing communication problems.
“Despite reasonable efforts to rectify the situation, the team expressed a desire to make a change to the lineup, which has now resulted in the transfer of Benrlitom to a new team, where he is able to speak his native language and potentially play even better,” Bach said.
Benrlitom, however, states that he has “decided to quit Gamers2 for personal reasons.” Whatever the case, the move still leaves Gamers2 with players from multiple nations: Sweden, Norway, and Portugal. Dropping their Belgian component is unlikely to offer immediate reprieve from their language woes, but the transfer could be the first of multiple moves.
Benrlitom lands on his former French team, Titan. The side had arguably their greatest successes in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with Benrlitom on the roster. Results like those have largely been lacking in the past year for Titan, encouraging the organization to bring back Benrlitom to replace Quiquerez.
It wasn’t long ago that Quiquerez left his job in order to offer his full attention to Titan. That decision came around the same time the team acquired former Envy players Richard “Shox” Papillon and Edouard “Smithzz” Dubourdeaux.
In a post on Facebook, Quiquerez admitted that Papillon had taken his role on the squad as lurker with superior play.
“Let’s face it, he does it better than me,” Quiquerez said.
Quiquerez did promise to remain in the scene, offering that he would seek a new team to play with.
