Zonic Is Reportedly Leaving Team Vitality

Danish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen is reportedly on his way out of Team Vitality and is already exploring his options. Initially, this rumour was not confirmed, nor had zonic commented on which team he’ll join, but we received more detailed answers recently.

Zonic Is Leaving Team Vitality

According to rumours that popped up earlier this week, Danish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive coach zonic is set to leave Team Vitality in the near future. The 37-year-old’s departure from the Major-winning roster is supposedly happening due to disagreements in salary, as Team Vitality demanded zonic accept a reduced salary while re-negotiating his contract, which is set to expire before the start of 2024.

Besides Zonic, Vitality will also part ways with Lars Christian Robl, who will join zonic at Team Falcons. However, while salary seems to have been an issue for zonic, this wasn’t the case for Lars.

“It was not the money that drove me to this. It was the role, the responsibility, and the freedom I got in the role to create something that I really believe in.”

Zonic And Lars Leave Vitality Behind

Lars and zonic have worked together since 2018 while they were still a part of Astralis. The duo has won everything there is to win in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, including all S-Tier events and several Major titles.

They left Astralis to join Team Vitality. Even though they don’t consider themselves a package deal going forward, they have publicly stated that they like to work together and are happy to extend their partnership – which they will at Team Falcons.

Zonic and Lars’ departure from Vitality wasn’t even on the table until not too long ago. The Danish coach was looking to extend his stay at Vitality when he opened discussions with the French team about a new deal following his contract expiration at the end of 2023. However, as the talks dragged on without a conclusion, he started exploring his options.

Interestingly, at that time, Lars has already reached an agreement with Team Falcons as a new Director of Performance, so while the duo won’t arrive at Team Falcons as a package deal, they will have a chance to keep working together in 2024 and beyond.

“The reason was mid-and long-term. I think that Falcons’ project is really attractive,” said zonic when explaining his move.

“If we look at the short term, I’m part of the best team in the world right now, one that is most likely going to be the favourite for the next Major. But there were some things with Falcons’ project that, future-wise, make so much sense.”

On the other side, zonic’s move to the Falcons has another reason – it presents him with a new challenge, which seems to have been running out for the Danish coach. As zonic has stated, joining a competitive rank team and trying to build it up into one of the best in the world excites him and gives him better and more opportunities than staying with Team Vitality.

A New Challenge

For zonic and Lars, joining Team Falcons gives them a new challenger, while for the Falcons to sign the most successful CS:GO coach and Lars as a Director of Performance marks a huge move and a massive boost for the organisation.

However, while adding zonic as a coach gives the Falcons a lot of room for improvement, the Dane is keeping his expectations tamed.

“I think it would be foolish to go in and say, ‘We can qualify for the Major, and Falcons’ ambition is to win the Major in Copenhagen. I think that would be stupid and not very responsible.

“But that was also the case for Vitality when I joined. I also said the first year would be rough, and that was despite me having a super team under me.”

Team Falcons are currently ranked no.55 in the world and have recently made a few roster changes. But as we transition fully to Counter-Strike 2, more changes are likely on the cards.