Rumors: FORZE to replace smooya at ESL Pro League Season 19

FORZE will play their next match at ESL Pro League Season 19 without Owen "smooya" Butterfield. He will be replaced by the team's coach Artem "Fierce" Ivanov. Insider Vlad "harumi" Radvilovich reported this via his Telegram channel. However, the club has not made any official statements yet.

smooya got to play only one series for FORZE: together with him, the team lost to Monte at ESL Pro League Season 19. Presumably, the unexpected replacement of the player is connected with the comment in support of Ukraine, which he shared via his social media accounts after the end of the match. The Briton promptly deleted the message and added: "Crazy situation happening here, update you soon".

smooya joined FORZE on April 15 along with another stand-in, Aleksei "NickelBack" Trofimov. Prior to this, Butterfield had a status of a free agent, which he received after departing The Witchers in January of this year.

ESL Pro League Season 19 runs from April 23 to May 12 in Malta. The total prize pool of the tournament is $750,000. Participants will also compete for a slot at IEM Cologne 2024. On May 1 at 19:30 CET, FORZE will face FURIA in the middle bracket of Group C.

FORZE's lineup for ESL Pro League Season 19 looks as follows:

 Alexandr "shalfey" Marenov
 Andrey "tN1R" Tatarinovich
 Ivan "SELLTER" Miroshnikov
 Owen "smooya" Butterfield
 Aleksei "NickelBack" Trofimov

 Artem "Fierce" Ivanov (coach)

Origin: t.me