Astralis, the best CS:GO team of all time, may feature a totally different lineup next year. The Danes’ in-game leader Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander confirmed in a press conference today ahead of the IEM Cologne playoffs that most of the team’s contracts will expire on Jan. 1.
“As most people know, most of us have contracts that are running out on January 1,” gla1ve said during the press conference, referring to a tweet from RushBMedia’s Ryan Friend on June 18 that revealed that Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen, Andreas “Xyp9x” Højsleth, Emil “Magisk” Reif, and gla1ve would be free to start negotiating with other organizations before their contracts expire.
“We don’t know yet what to expect,” gla1ve said. “It’s up in the air who is going to be in the next Astralis team. We still want to be one of the top teams in the world. We’re doing everything we can. We’re trying to work as hard as we can, trying to fix some mistakes. In practice, it seems that some days we’re doing really well, but some days we’re not that good. It’s more about finding a consistent level. If we can find that, I expect this lineup to reach the playoffs in all tournaments and also to win titles sometimes.”
There’s been more doubt regarding the future of Astralis since it was reported that head coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen is considering leaving the team before his contract also expires at the end of the year. The tension between the roster and Astralis has reportedly been building for several months and Zonic is disappointed with the direction of the team.
Astralis is reportedly monitoring the market and has made Heroic’s head coach Nicolai “HUNDEN” Petersen its top target to coach the team in 2022. One day after the report was released, Heroic revealed that HUNDEN wouldn’t be behind the team at IEM Cologne, which is fairly strange given that it’s the most stacked CS:GO event of the year and the first LAN since IEM Katowice in March 2020.
For now, the Astralis camp will focus on the quarterfinals of IEM Cologne 2021. They’ll play the first match of the playoffs tomorrow against Virtus Pro at 9am CT. The Danes weren’t playing well prior to this event but surprised the CS:GO community when they made it to the quarterfinals.
Xyp9x thinks that the LAN environment helped them. “I also think that we are not satisfied with just being in the quarter-finals. We are of course aiming to win it, but we’re taking it one match at a time,” Xyp9x said. “Now we have to face Virtus Pro and we are focused on that. Let’s see how far we can go. But of course, we are happy to be in the quarterfinals.”
