Team Liquid has moved on from North American Counter-Strike 2 coach Damian “daps” Steele after a turbulent 17-month stint.
Today’s move comes after a series of poor results for the CS team following a multi-national roster shakeup. Robert “Patsi “Isyanov and Aleks “Rainwaker” Petrov’s arrival hasn’t been the success Liquid hoped for. For now, Liquid will be coachless heading into 2024, following confirmation from the org on X today. Liquid has until ESL Pro League Season 19 on April 23, 2024, to formulate its next squad, now without daps at the helm.
The Canadian veteran helped push TL through to multiple top-four finishes and they finished just shy of taking home the BLAST Premier World Final 2022 and ESL Pro League Season 16 trophies. In those two tournaments in particular daps and the squad lost to what many regarded as the best Counter-Strike teams of that era, without the star-studded cast his opponents possessed.
However, the months following his top four successes were underwhelming. The newly formed European roster never clicked and TL fans sat through multiple poor performances. Liquid’s Counter-Strike roster never broke past seventh, with their earliest exit being 17th out of 32 teams in the final CS:GO tournament before the Source 2 transition.
As of right now, daps replacement hasn’t been announced. Early reports from HLTV suggest Wilton “zews” Prado will be making his return to the North American org soon.
The outgoing Brazillian coach took charge of four separate orgs since his previous stint at Team Liquid, with each—barring Evil Geniuses—failing to reach the heights he and his former TL teammates accomplished in their heyday. However, keep in mind, zews’ departure to Liquid hasn’t been officially announced. Whether daps can find his way back into another CS2 squad is yet to be determined. With NRG potentially making a comeback into the CS2 landscape, that organization might just pinch the best NA coach available.
