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Gentle Mates Alpine have announced the departure of Amine “itachi” Benayachi from their Rocket League esports roster ahead of the 2025 season.
Itachi joined the Gentle Mates Alpine Rocket League roster as one of the inaugural members in January 2024 along with Enzo “Seikoo” Grondein, Charles “juicy” Sabiani, and coach Benjamin “Eversax” Wagner.
By putting together one of the most stacked lineups in Europe, Gentle Mates had high expectations entering the 2024 season; however, while they showed some glimpses of greatness, itachi and co. lost momentum towards the end of the year.
Au revoir @itachi_rl
Merci pour toutes les émotions que tu nous auras fait vivre cette année Capitaine 💚🩷 pic.twitter.com/LTbHXRVUWX
— Gentle Mates (@gentlemates) December 2, 2024
With Gentle Mates, itachi won RLCS 2024 Major 1 Copenhagen, placed top four in three RLCS 2024 Major 2 EU Open Qualifiers, and reached the semifinals of the London Major.
After a strong start, the team failed to accomplish much in the season’s later events, finishing 9th-12th at Esports World Cup 2024 and placing seventh-eighth at the RLCS 2024 World Championship.
Despite the rough ending to the season, itachi has retained his tag as one of the best Rocket League players in Europe.
After starting his professional career in 2020 with FC Barcelona, itachi had a stint with Vodafone Giants before making his mark during a two-year stretch with Karmine Corp, where he won won three European championships, a Winter Major, and reached the semifinals of the RLCS 2022-23 World Championship.
Even in the 2024 season, itachi added another Major title to his resume and was declared European MVP at the 2024 RLCS World Championship — despite getting eliminated by Oxygen Esports in the first round of the playoffs.
Given his status as one of Europe’s best Rocket League players, the 21-year-old will not have a hard time finding a new home for the 2025 season.
The Moroccan player has yet to comment on his future; however, recent rumours have linked itachi — along with Oskar “Oski” Gozdowski and Nassim “nass” Bali — to Ninjas in Pyjamas and also G2 Esports, who released their entire lineup at the start of November.
