Zews Comes Out Of Retirement To Coach O PLANO

Brazilian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive legend, Wilton “zews” Prado has decided to come out of retirement and return to coaching. As announced, the 34-year-old will take over as the head coach of O PLANO, marking his return to competitive CS:GO for the first time since June 2021.

Zews is one of the most recognizable names in the Brazilian and international Counter-Strike competitive scene and a highly successful coach with a plethora of achievements under his belt. The 34-year-old first appeared in the competitive CS scene in 2004 when he competed for YeaH! Gaming in CS 1.6, later continuing with the organization in CS: Source.

In 2012, zews transitioned to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but his career as a player was rather short-lived, as he transitioned to coaching with Games Academy in August 2015. In November that year, zews took over one of the world’s most dominant teams, Luminosity Gaming, with who he won MLG Major Championship: Columbus 2016.

Later that year, zews, with the rest of the Luminosity Gaming roster, transitioned to SK Gaming, where he led the Brazilian squad to another Major title, the ESL One: Cologne 2016. Zews then stepped back to pro play as a player for Immortals but transitioned back to a coaching role with Team Liquid in November 2016.

Over the two years, zews has spent with Liquid, he has achieved immense success. Notably, he led Liquid to the finals of ESL Pro League Season 7 – Finals, Esports Championship Series Season 5 – Finals, and ESL Pro League Season 8 – Finals. Moreover, he won SuperNova Malta 2018, cs_summit 2, and reached the semi-finals at FACEIT Major: London 2018.

After leaving Liquid at the end of 2018, zews continued his coaching career with MiBR, but besides reaching semis at Intel Extreme Masters XIII – Katowice Major 2019 and CS:GO Asia Championships 2019, he hasn’t achieved much. This eventually led to zews’ departure from MiBR at the start of 2020.

Over the next year, zews took over Evil Geniuses, who he has helped win a handful of big events by the end of 2020, but a poor form across the first four months of 2021 saw zews part ways with the team.

Since his departure from Evil Geniuses, zews has not been seen competing or coaching a CS:GO team and was absent from the scene. However, according to his Tweet, zews has decided to return to active competition, marking a long-awaited return of one of Brazil’s top CS:GO coaches.

Zews’ return to competitive play comes just five months after he has survived a life-threatening heart attack. Although he has at the time noted that he had no intentions of returning to coaching full-time due to the hectic and unhealthy lifestyle forced on coaches due to travel schedules, it seems like zews has changed his mind.

In part, his decision to return might have to do with the CS:GO Major heading to Brazil this year, and he could not decline a chance to lead the team in front of a home crowd. However, O PLANO have yet to qualify for the Major.

With zews appointed as the head coach, O PLANO are now ready to compete for a Major ticket at the Americas RMR. The tournament will kick off on October 5, with 16 attending teams, who will compete in a 16-team swiss system format.

All elimination and advancement matches will be Bo3, while all other matches will be Bo1. The tournament will use a Buchholz system to seed matches from the third to fifth round, with the top six teams advancing to the IEM Rio Major.

The tournament will also feature other notable names in FURIA, Imperial Esports, Team Liquid, Complexity Gaming, Evil Geniuses, and 00Nation. O PLANO’s first match of the tournament is scheduled for October 4, when they face off against MiBR.