FURIA will have to use head coach Nicholas “guerri” Nogueira as its fifth player for ESL Pro League season 14, the organization announced today.
It’s the second time the Brazilian CS:GO team has had to change its lineup for the $750,000 tournament. The organization initially wanted to play with one of its academy players, André “drop” Abreu, instead of Lucas “honda” Cano. ESL, however, denied an emergency transfer for the Brazilians and honda was set to travel to Europe to play one last event with FURIA’s main team. But he gave up on going to Europe and playing in the tournament after his mom tested positive for COVID-19.
With honda sitting out, FURIA had no other choice than to sub in guerri. The 31-year-old is a former pro who transitioned to coaching in early 2018 and has been the head of FURIA’s CS:GO team since. He’s stood in for the team on other occasions, most notably at the ESEA season 31 Global Challenge in July 2019 and at cs_summit five in December 2019, having finished the latter with a 0.66 rating after 10 maps, according to HLTV’s statistics.
FURIA are in Group D of ESL Pro League season 14 alongside Gambit, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Liquid, Team oNe, and Entropiq. The group will begin tomorrow and guerri and crew will face Entropiq in the opening round at 9:45am CT.
