SAW and FTW trade two in Portuguese shuffle

2-7-2022 10:29

The two best Portuguese teams have retooled their lineups following the end of ESEA Season 41.

SAW and FTW have made large changes to their lineups, changing two players and head coach each. The side of SAW saw the departures of Renato "⁠stadodo⁠" Gonçalves, Omar "⁠arki⁠" Chakkor, and Rui "⁠vts⁠" Soares from the main lineup. To fill the player shoes came both Michel "⁠ewjerkz⁠" Pinto and João "⁠story⁠" Vieira from FTW, while arki took up the reins as the coach.

For FTW, the aforementioned ewjerkz and story departed for SAW, while Cristiano "⁠D10S⁠" Marques Sá Carvalho moved to an assistant coach role. As part of the trade with SAW, stadodo joined alongside coach vts. To fill in the final slot, the squad picked up Francisco "⁠kst⁠" Fragoso, who most recently played for fnatic Rising.

arki will take the role of coach for the first time

SAW turned many heads earlier this year at the Europe Regional Major Ranking event for PGL Antwerp, where the team was one series away from qualifying for the Major after beating Unique and fnatic.

FTW has also had a big recent success, as the team qualified for the main stage of ESL Pro League Season 16 through the Conference stage. The lineup made an impressive lower bracket run, defeating Sprout, ORDER, and Illuminar to become the first fully Portuguese team to qualify for EPL.

Both teams are set to debut their new lineups in Circuito Retake Season 4, kicking off on July 9. Here are the new lineups for SAW and FTW:

SAW
Ricardo "⁠roman⁠" Oliveira
Christopher "⁠MUTiRiS⁠" Fernandes
Tiago "⁠JUST⁠" Moura
Michel "⁠ewjerkz⁠" Pinto
João "⁠story⁠" Vieira

Omar "⁠arki⁠" Chakkor (coach)

FTW
Diogo "⁠DDias⁠" Dias
Rafael "⁠arrozdoce⁠" Wing
André "⁠Ag1l⁠" Gil
Renato "⁠stadodo⁠" Gonçalves
Francisco "⁠kst⁠" Fragoso

Rui "⁠vts⁠" Soares (coach)

nice

2022-07-02 10:30

ez for arrozdoce

13 replies

kinda solid changes in how they thought of everything. good for them to keep playing with two relevant teams in tier2

2022-07-02 11:31

story and ewjerkz qualified to EPL with ftw but decided to go to saw lollll

2022-07-02 11:55

10 replies

like, i understand your POV, but we need to understand that playing along side mutiris, rmn and just is a dream for any portuguese player I am sure that story and ewjerkz always dreamed about playing with them

2022-07-02 12:24

8 replies

so what lmao - playing with 3 retired players VS - the chance to play against the best teams in the world and show yourself to Orgs who can give you a living salary

2022-07-02 12:48

6 replies

+1 plus they could always do it "later" lol

2022-07-02 15:07

if they went to saw its cuz they believe in the project they believe that epl its reachable with saw and they want the major not to play epl and retire...

2022-07-02 15:47

saw pay more and even though ftw are in pro league saw still is the bigger team in terms of reputation, imagine in football if braga finished ahead of porto and benfica the braga players would still move to either one of the teams, its a far more atractive offer

3 replies

true kinda what happened ruben amorim with sporting braga finished 3 and he went to 4th place sporting

2022-07-02 16:26

2 replies

And then won the championship the year after. Who knows what will happen. Don't like this trade tho

2022-07-02 17:41

1 reply

i thinks thats what saw needed a new blood coming with wanting to make their name lets see what happen

2022-07-03 00:20

Yes... but why? Lol they should be dreaming of playing with good players

2022-07-02 18:06

They pay more

2022-07-02 14:03

Foxj > world

2022-07-02 12:54

gl!

ez for sweetrice

Extremely disapointed in how this ended..

2022-07-02 10:32

5 replies

Unless you wanted someone like Offset to join in on the shuffle or bring in spanish players, I don't see what more could have been done.

2022-07-02 10:36

4 replies

I prefered RafaxF and Shr to FTW and D1OS to stay

2022-07-02 10:37

So to Offset and GTZ to join in on the shuffle, got it. Still, we don't know their contract, maybe buyout is too high, and as it is a trade, I would say that no one was willing to put money on the table.

2022-07-02 10:41

Stadodo >>>>>>>>>>> Rafa Shr >>>>>>>>>> Kst VTS >>>>>> D10S D10S to analyst is a intelligent move I think is a downgrade to FTW, but now FTW have the beast player PT by Zywoo

2022-07-02 10:46

esse comentario tem q ser troll no cap

2022-07-02 18:00

SAW destroying FTW

2022-07-02 10:33

what? Stadodo it´s a fucking monster

2022-07-02 10:45

saw destroying best pt team bcs they got bigger fanbase and money fu saw

2022-07-02 10:35

16 replies

it's not like the players didn't want to join them, right?

2022-07-02 10:43

15 replies

players ofc want bigger paycheck like everyone want more money for their jobs , that not change the fact that saw destroying best pt team cause of money , but i think ftw can been best team in portugal and with this roster if stadodo been confident and kst step up

14 replies

idk if saw can get into major it was worth it

2022-07-02 10:47

is not for money dude, FTW gonna play with the best players PT of all time, they want to evolve, and if they want to evolve they need to play with Mut and Rmn

2022-07-02 10:50

12 replies

ofc is the money too bro :) propably x2 the paycheck the get into ftw , and overall with this roster won best PT players , you can evolve and with your first group of players when you are doing so well , but yeah i get the point mutiris = GOD

2022-07-02 10:52

11 replies

And they're teenagers, they just want to make mom and dad proud.

2022-07-02 11:04

7 replies

how much pt orgs pay the players ? saw something like 5k ?

2022-07-02 11:05

Don't know, but i think is less than 3k Maybe 1.5k-2-5k euros, i don't have this information

2022-07-02 11:09

saw got a bootcamp ? i mean you know arena only for them

2022-07-02 11:10

Yes, they make like one/two bootcamps on 6 months

2022-07-02 11:11

good for your scene :) hope you qualify for major this time , i was so upser with the luck of jame in the last sec

Thanks, i hope BNE qualify to major too <3

2022-07-02 11:12

i hope too :) so good small countries with not so big scenes do such a things i wish more little countries grow and qualify for tours

2022-07-02 11:16

it is not, the FTW CEO said that in terms of money they could provide the players the same amount that SAW. This season FTW had more earnings than SAW. source: fraglider.pt/equipas-de-csgo-portuguesas..

2022-07-02 12:29

30 k earning propably not even enough for pay the 5 players for a year bro , the earning have nothing to do with the contracts that a team can offer

2022-07-02 12:30

They also make income on betting against and on themselves and ad revenue. SAW has revenue from the trash watch company and possibly others.

2022-07-02 15:10

Good luck to both

Little downgrade for FTW SAW ready for qualify to major

On paper this doesn't seem like a downgrade for FTW tbh, but the chemistry of the old squad might be hard to replace.

2022-07-02 13:09

arki become coach nice

portuguese cs KEKW

na cs KEKW

NA = 1 major 1 grand slam Portugal = 1 choked qualifier KEKW

2022-07-02 10:53

NA = 1 lose 1vs5 on matchpoint PT = 0 lose 1vs5

2022-07-02 11:17

NA Population: 579 million (2016) PT Population: 10.31 million (2020) 57x more people yet barely any scene.

2022-07-02 15:12

-arki +story again... i thought they tried it last year already and didn't like it

different situation, in that one they kept stadodo in even tho he was the awper and arki left while stadodo took a rifling role, now two new players joined, i think story will have more space to play now alongside ewjerkz with him

2022-07-02 20:42

I see, thanks portuguese guy

2022-07-03 16:27

change decent sniper stadodo with bot story so smart by saw...

2022-07-02 10:51

1.02 decent sniper lmao

2022-07-03 13:25

I'd rather see ftw staying together and saw adding adams and martinez. Then stadodo would make another team with kst and shr maybe. But this can workout aswell, although I'm not so sure about story being good enough for saw

No more boomer team :(

2022-07-02 11:18

FTW even stronger now no?

Stadodo on point and playing with confidence is way better than story imo. But -ewjerkz is a huge loss, he was by far his best player imo, so they would always downgrade there. Adding kst means arrozdoce will switch roles most likely, and stadodo may igl aswell, that's still being discussed among the team according to him. Idk if we can say ftw is stronger at the moment, but they have potential to get there

2022-07-02 11:24

Well then time will tell. I hope they can reach full potential. They look promising!

2022-07-02 12:06

Arrozdoce will igl

2022-07-02 13:47

Arrozdoce? Hahahahhaha, they have Ddias and stadodo, and they already said ddias was probably igling

2022-07-02 14:01

From what fraglider says arrozdoce will be the captain, but yeah doesnt make sense to me

2022-07-02 15:05

Captain isn´t the same as igl bro. Igl is a rola. For example, ftw IGL is ddias but he isn´t the captain.

2022-07-02 16:40

Ok my bad then

2022-07-02 16:46

wow nice whooooooooooo whooooooooooooooo

2022-07-02 11:21

rip both teams

2022-07-02 11:35

is kst good? if so, ftw might be even better than before. ewjerkz is better than arki but story was a bot last time at saw

2022-07-02 11:49

He did strugle yes. But I think it was due to him playing a different awping style that he never was good in. Pretty sure now he will play on his favorite positions and he will be better.

Im curious to see what will happen to the pt scene with this changes. In terms of changes. I think stadodo is rn a better awper than story. Though story has a lot of room for improvement so Saw will absolutely have a solid awper in the team. Ewjerkz is a big addition to Saw and a big loss to ftw. Kst is a solid addition as well and though I think he wont be as good as ewjerkz he will do a good job anyways. In the best of cases we will have 2 pt teams in the top 30 in the worst case is just more of the same.

2022-07-02 11:54

huh FTW still have a better lineup now ahaha

WTF

2022-07-02 12:00

If they wanted to fight for going past their peak, they should've gone Iberian. Ewjerkz ,along arroz doce, are by far the most exciting news for PT scene but Saw needed an awper , so unless they would adapt a new player into an awper (something that most times goes horribly wrong) to get those 2, they should've gone for perhaps ideally Adams and Martinez. Ideally to create the "Iberian superteam" (kek) it would be + sunpayus +mopoz (but Saw definitely wouldn't have the funds, so there would have to be Movistar and Mut and rmn wouldn't be going there ever again so... )

2022-07-02 12:19

I think it would be better for both the players and the organization if they played the EPL first and only exchanged after that. but still gl to everyone

They can´t change after that, because its already in the new season.

2022-07-02 13:59

oh...

2022-07-02 14:15

Why don't they take MartinezSa? Dude, you can't miss with him

2022-07-02 12:28

because he is known in Iberian scene as an onliner, he isnt used to playing on LAN, abd therefore as SAW want to succeed both on and offline he wouldnt be the best fit, plus we dont really know if he can handle communicating a mix of portuguese and spanish, as they did with arki on the lineup

2022-07-03 05:35

rip ftw, just had an amazing run and ruined by some pt oldfags. mark my words, both teams now dead

2022-07-02 12:34

Good luck

2022-07-02 12:53

wasnt stadodo the best one of them

2022-07-02 13:02

Maybe in the early times, but lately no.

2022-07-02 13:58

I don't think so - JUST is for me their best player.

2022-07-02 15:16

Swaps don’t work

2022-07-02 13:11

POG we have two decent teams now!!!!

2022-07-02 13:16

Francisco "⁠kst⁠" Fragoso , this guy was predestinated to play cs .

2022-07-02 13:18

Bro's name is literally Frag

2022-07-02 13:54

i hope it works out otherwise rip portgualé

2022-07-02 13:28

portgualé))))

2022-07-02 21:36

rip ftw its was good while it lasted

2022-07-02 13:45

they tryna join NBA offseason KEKW

2022-07-02 13:46

I think is good trade for both teams.

interesting

2022-07-02 14:08

gl to both teams

2022-07-02 14:58

lmao they just gave up stadodo the best portugese for what? stttory??????????????????????????

2022-07-02 15:19

nice!

2022-07-02 16:24

FTW won this shuffle for sure

2022-07-02 17:30

ArrozGOD team will always be on the rice

2022-07-02 17:58

Question: what in the world could be wrong with D10S ?

nothing, vts just a more experienced coach. D10S now have the opportunity to learn directly from a better coach.

2022-07-02 20:23

D10S is in university so could not carry full time with ftw, but i think he will continue working in the team but vts will be full time coach. Thats what i read

2022-07-07 10:28

This is very interesting to see, nice changes to spice it up. Would be awesome to have both teams consistently in the top 30 but if it even happens it will take some time. For those interested: these two teams will most likely play each other for the first time a week from now in OMEN Retake Season 4, which will show up on hltv soon.

2022-07-03 04:19

actually a pretty strange swap .. portugal never had a team playing any tier1 csgo tournament like pro league... ftw core had a lot of potential together... why change???? i heard a lot of good things ab them even just from pracc's. sad but good luck all .

2022-07-03 22:11

Saw is the team with best players on paper, the more reputation and more money even though most of the portuguese comunity didnt want saw to break ftw apart its a understandable switch from the ftw players and for saw as well because before ftw there was no good option on the pt scene to swap any of the players on the team. In the end i just hope both of the teams get better and not the oposite

2022-07-07 10:21