shox- My bench from Liquid and my future
23/06/2022

Hello everyone!

As you could see by the announcement of Team Liquid, I am officially on the bench of the team.

It was important for me to make a little recap of these 6 months spent with the team and to explain the reasons for my choice.

When I started to discuss with Liquid, I liked the sports and human projects. On the one hand, on the sporting level, having 2 players with a very big firepower like NAF and EliGE with a captain like nitr0 who proved in the past his ability to lead his team to great titles was already a very good base in my eyes. I was also told that EliGE was an important voice on the team in terms of co-lead and structures on these BPs in CT, which made 3 voices with me and I've always had success in the teams I've made on this format, so I was pretty hype because having 3 voices on a team is pretty rare in general. So the last addition was oSee, a promising young sniper, new blood around experienced players was a very good idea for me too. My main goal was to bring back the maximum of experience that I have accumulated over the years, Europe being ahead in CS compared to the US, I wanted to help them catch up and become as competitive as possible in the current meta.

On the human side, it was agreed that I would be in the US for two specific periods of 3 months and 2 months in 2022. I discussed this with my wife, and we thought that it could be beneficial as a life experience, for me, for her, for the little one too, for us. Discovering a new culture, new ways of thinking, a new way of living can only be enriching to us and we were ready to embark on this "American Dream".

We started the process with the help of Liquid to obtain visas in order to be able to live on American soil, we called, took information and started the process with the school for our little one, we visited this school, notified the French school where he is still studying in order to make this transition as smooth as possible. We also visited several apartments in which we would have to move when the time came. And of course, we informed all our entourage of this change of life (the father of the little one (I'm a stepfather for those who don't know), parents, in-laws, brothers/sisters, friends etc...).

Everything was coming true and we were ready to embark on this American adventure at 200%! Unfortunately, as time went by, it turned out that I was supposed to be in the United States for tournaments taking place on American soil, but according to the information I was given, they were almost all either cancelled or relocated to Europe for administrative reasons.

The worst part was probably the RMR with all the last minutes changes from Valve that forced the TOs to change their plans, creating a lot of extra travels, issues, troubles and a lot of stress..

As a result, in the middle of the season, it was a big blow for my family and me because this American life will not see the light of day as planned, at least not before maybe October 2022.

As a consequence, I find myself having my life in France but having the life and agenda of an American player which immediately makes things very very complicated. I'm always on the move, I have no time to relax and recover from this overloaded CS schedule. I'm either in bootcamp, or in tournaments, or in media shoots, or in the US to do regional qualifiers like BLAST, RMR, Dallas Qualif... Not having a home in the US, I was either in a hotel during these periods or at the manager's house (Steve) that I thank from the bottom of my heart because knowing my situation, he did everything to make my trip as pleasant as possible, many thanks for his accommodation.

The agenda being overloaded, we also organize ourselves so that my wife and my little one join me when they can, otherwise it is almost impossible to see each other.

On the sporting level, as in all teams there are complications and I gave as much as I could despite the extenuating circumstances complicated to manage and live daily in order to give our team the best chance on the competitive field. We could see during the EPL where we beat Heroic and where we played a very close game against NiP that we could have won in order to go to the semi-finals that the training on European soil is bearing fruit and that we are on the right track.

After this tournament we had to go back to the United States because there were qualifications to be done and the players being Americans and their lives there, they obviously go back home when they can. I could see our level regressing when we were there because the American training is far from the quality we can have in Europe, so all the work we had done was gradually decreasing.

I continued to give what I could give until the end, even though I felt like I was getting very tired with all the ups and downs but I couldn't do anything else, so I gritted my teeth and made it to the end. At the end of the major, I had a burnout, I had to go home as soon as possible (that's why I wasn't present in Antwerp for the finals and I apologize for all the fans who were waiting for my presence).

I also realized that from the beginning of January until the major, I was only about 25 days at home, half of them being on American working hours so from 7pm until 2 or 3am.

The human aspect that requires a balance in my life that I have not had for 6 months, the choice to put myself on the bench was inevitable in my eyes.

Since the major I have been doing everything to take care of myself in order to get better as quickly as possible: mental coach, family resources, sports, psychological escape... I felt a tremendous need for it. I can already start to feel the benefits and I intend to continue in this direction in order to be fulfilled in my life but also to be ready at 200% for my next chapter with a new team.

I would like to thank oSee, nitr0, NAF, EliGE and adreN for the moments we shared together because even if it was a very difficult period for me, I will keep in memory the positive that we lived and it was a pleasure to meet you.

Thanks also to Victor and Team Liquid for their understanding, nobody would have wished this but considering the situation, it was not holy for me nor for the organization to continue in these conditions.

Thanks to Team Liquid in general and to all the people I met (Lucid, Joey, Will, Rich, Chang, Julian, Benjamin and all the others ...), you have all been great to me since the beginning.

I am allowed to explore the options available for my next step, if you want to contact me, you can reach my agent on shox@prodigy-agency.gg or twitter.com/Jerome_Coupez

See you soon, heart on you <3.

shox