Legendary Counter-Strike player Ioann “Edward” Sukhariev will be in charge of Team Ukraine against Owen “smooya” Butterfield’s Team Europe in a best-of-three showmatch today that will benefit the not-for-profit organization Ukraine South Freedom.
Edward will team up with current Natus Vincere rifler Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev, former NAVI Junior player Daniil “headtr1ck” Valitov, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s brother and creative director at NAVI Alexey Kostylev, and Ukrainian streamer Diana Rice. Smooya, on the other hand, will be playing alongside former Astralis Talent player Frederik “Fessor” Sørensen, former NAVI player and current streamer Arseny “ceh9” Trynozhenko, Ukrainian soccer star Yevhen Konoplyanka, and Ukrainian streamer Slevin “Kyivstoner” Dadyan.
The showmatch will kick off today at 12pm CT and the teams will play on Dust II, Inferno, and Mirage. All three maps will be played regardless of whether a team wins the first two maps. The spectators can donate directly to the charity during the best-of-three and the funds raised will go to Ukrainian refugee families, according to HLTV.
The Ukrainian stream will be held on ceh9’s Twitch channel, while former CS:GO player turned analyst and commentator Jacob “Pimp” Winneche will broadcast the action on his own Twitch channel.
This will be the second showmatch in recent weeks that Edward has formed a team to participate and help with gathering funds for Ukrainian charity. The former NAVI player defeated Yegor “markeloff” Markelov’s team on Sept. 23 in a similar bout.
