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Team Spirit announced ambitious plans for expanding their Counter-Strike 2 division by forming four new youth teams for up-and-coming players aged 12 and up.
The plans were announced by Spirit Academy manager Dmitrii “Soul3” Bukhteev. He explained that Spirit had plans to expand their academy for a long time and now found a system they believe works the best.
With continuity as the main goal, the new academy project was modelled on football academies, with under-12, under-14, and under-16 squads.
The latter will be the final step before promotion to the main Spirit Academy roster – and eventually to the main Counter-Strike 2 lineup.
“So that a player from the U16 squad, moving to the main roster of the academy, would not face problems of adaptation: that the style of play, schedule and training methods were already familiar to him. Everything should be clear and logical,” said Soul3.
The new academy project has been in development since late 2024 and is intended to improve Spirit’s talent production, which has already been one of the best in the industry.
Since the formation of the Spirit Academy CS2 team, the organisation has fostered some of the world’s most promising young talent, including ex-Team Liquid player Robert “Patsi” Isyanov, Aleksandr “KaiR0N-” Anashkin, BetBoom Team teammates Kharitonov, Pavel “s1ren” Ogloblin, and Kirill “Magnojez” Rodnov, Artem “ArtFr0st” Kharitonov, and Timur “FL4MUS” Marev.
Some of the most notable faces to graduate from Spirit Academy are current members of the main lineup, Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia and seven-time MVP Danil “donk” Kryshkovets.
In the announcement, Soul3 added that some of the Spirit Academy CS2 players are getting ready to “move up” in their careers, suggesting that the list of players who will graduate from Spirit Academy and compete in some of the world’s strongest teams will expand soon.
This comes just days after Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin was reportedly linked with a move to Team Falcons, who are targeting another young Russian player, Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov.
While Team Spirit are not the only Counter-Strike 2 team to have an academy division, they are the only organisation with such ambitious goals of fostering younger talent in the region.
