Team Slovakia Fields Random CS:GO Fan to Complete Roster at IESF World Championship
They actually had a pretty good run at the tournament.
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Team Slovakia qualified for the currently ongoing IESF World Championship 2021 in Israel, but tragedy struck the team as one of their players tested positive for COVID right before their flight to Israel.
To complete their roster, Team Slovakia fielded a CS:GO fan named Stanislav "GrOgY" Babala who was traveling along with the team itself. GrOgY had actually won a contest/giveaway sponsoring him a free trip along with the team to the LAN CS:GO tournament.
If this wasn't incredible enough, the 22-year-old fan went on to help Team Slovakia win both their group stage matches and qualify for the playoffs. GrOgY has surely held his own despite playing amidst professional CS:GO players, securing an overall HLTV rating of 0.88 across the five maps so far.
Team Slovakia competed at the IESF World Championship 2021 with a random CS:GO fan
This might seem like something right out of a 1980s sports movie, but it is very true. A random CS:GO fan was traveling with Team Slovakia to Eilat, Israel, where the IESF World Championship 2021 is currently taking place, after having won a free trip as part of a contest/giveaway. This fan actually got a chance to compete with Team Slovakia at the tournament.
It might have been a dream come true for the 22-year-old, GrOgY, as he got to compete for Team Slovakia since one of the main players of Team Slovakia was unable to make it to the venue due to testing positive for COVID right before the flight.
While not much was expected from the team due to this unfortunate development, Team Slovakia surprisingly went on to put up quite the show as they won both their group stage matches to make it all the way to the playoffs. The team might have dropped down to the lower bracket since, but it has been an excellent run from them considering that they are playing with a random fan who was just traveling with them for fun as a result of having won a contest.
GrOgY has so far held his own against the professional players, helping the team win in any way possible. His BO3 series in the playoffs was pretty rough, but the team is still in the fight and the whole CS:GO community is backing them up with chants of "GrOgY! GrOgY! GrOgY!" filling up Reddit and Twitter.
Another thing to note here is that GrOgY is not a silver or gold nova player. Instead, Team Slovakia is lucky to have been traveling with a FACEIT level 10 player who also has some amateur tournament experience having played in CZ SK Pro League Division 2, EU Classic Hub, and more.
It will be interesting to see how far Team Slovakia progresses from here on out, as the CS:GO community is surely backing them up along with GrOgY in particular, as he is living the dream right now!
