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On Friday, LDLC announced they had welcomed Counter Strike: Global Offensive player François “AMANEK” Delaunay back into their roster, confirming previous reports. The organization made the official announcement mere hours after G2 released their farewell video for the player.
G2’s Twitter farewell post was captioned, “Thanks for everything… it’s been a great ride.” The player was benched from the team at the start of the season and stayed there for seven months. AMANEK was initially set to move to Falcons while benched, but the transfer did not happen for several reasons.
The French rifler and LDLC were in talks concerning the move for several days before the announcement. His addition to the team will mark a new beginning for the player’s career after being placed on the sidelines for most of 2022. During his time on the bench, AMANEK’s position was taken by Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, the previous Natus Vincere prodigy.
AMANEK played for LDLC between 2018 and 2019 before leaving to fill in G2’s CS:GO roster in March of that year. He replaced the outgoing player, Alexandre “bodyy” Pianaro. When the French player joined their roster, he played a crucial role; however, the team was not able to win S-tier tournaments.
While there, AMANEK played different roles in the team, one of which was standing in as a primary sniper in 2021 to attend to the group’s needs. Despite not winning any tournament, the player and the rest of the team got close to the finish line in several games. Some of these include the March 2020 IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne in July 2021, and finally, the November 2021 PGL Stockholm Major. NAVI beat G2 in the grand finals of all the tournaments.
While AMANEK was benched in G2, the player made some brief appearances in games. He tagged in for coach Rémy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam at IEM Katowice in February, as well as when the in-game leader, Aleksib, tested positive for COVID-19.
AMANEK’s new position in LDLC is expected to be a leadership role as the French rifler is much more experienced than the rest of the organization’s team. Most of the players in the group are youngsters from the French scene and have yet to play at the highest level of tournaments.
Due to AMANEK’s addition, the organization has six active CS:GO players under contract. The all-French roster includes AMANEK , Hugo “Brooxsy” Di Bono, Eythan “unshaark” Solomon, Filip “Graviti” Brankovic, Ryan “Neityu” Aubry, Remi “Diviiii” Alexandre, and Lambert “Lambert” Prigent as the coach. Florian “ElectuS” Delearde is also among the team; however, he is benched at the moment.
AMANEK’s arrival should bring LDLC a step closer to the top two best French teams at the moment, HEET and Falcons. According to reports, the organization seems to want a more prominent role in the coming year and is trying out a number of new players to attain that goal.
The new roster is yet to be completed as the organization is reportedly on the lookout for additional players. LDLC is currently trialing two young players, Arthur “Snobling” Benard from Exalty and Matthieu “Razzmo” Mellot, a rifler from TGJ.
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