As an occasional gym-goer, I can barely juggle between: keeping healthy at the gym, having a full-time job and playing Counter-Strike. By that logic it would only seem logical that a professional full time athlete would be in a similar predicament.
Although you do have to consider that it is their full time job, even with the heavy load of travelling and training, they do get a considerable amount of free time.
There are many, upon many, upon many of professional athletes that play games and even Counter Strike; but we will be focusing on those that people would recognise the most.
Neymar Jr:
The first, and probably the most notable of all on this list, has to be Neymar Jr. Neymar Jr, who used to play for PSG and has recently moved back to his childhood club Santos FC, has a prominent foot in the Counter-Strike scene. He has played in show matches with Furia against Vitality, where he was able to knife the best player in the world at that time Zyw0o. He also streams Counter-Strike on his Twitch channel to thousands of viewers, while playing with Brazilian professional Counter-Strike players, for example FalleN.
Footballers train a considerable amount and it is a complete physical strain on the body; however Neymar has still found 11,000+ hours of free time to play on CS alone. This is a considerable amount more than the average player would have, who would acquire something closer to 1000 hours! During these 11,000 hours, Neymar developed an eye for the skins that you can get for weapon models. These can range from €0.01 to upwards of €1,000,000. Yes. €1,000,000. Neymar’s inventory boasts and incredible combined value of skins over €180,000. Now we can see exactly where that weekly salary is being put to use.
Neymar Jr always finds a time and place to grace CS. Before his final in the Champions League, he had played 3 Faceit games the night before! Even after his impressive hat-trick against Clermont, Neymar went back to his accommodation and played Counter-Strike and celebrated with a glass of wine.
Mudryk:
Another football star that plays Counter-Strike is Chelsea’s £88.5 million winger Mudryk.
He has over 3000 hours clocked in Counter-Strike all the while sitting at level 3 on Faceit with 200+ matches. Mudryk, from Ukraine, is an avid Na’Vi fan.
Casemiro
Casemiro is another Brazilian football player, who has played for respectful clubs like: Real Madrid and Manchester United, who loves to get competitive on Counter-Strike. Casemiro, similarly to Neymar, also streams his gameplay to viewers on Twitch. Although, Casemiro has taken his love for CS a step further. He founded an Esports organisation for games like Valorant and Counter-Strike, conveniently named, Case Esports.
Casemiro is currently level 1 on Faceit with more than 1000+ matches played on the platform. He regularly plays with the likes of Neymar and team members of Furia.
Zinchenko
Zinchenko is involved heavily in the Esports scene from playing to actually owning an organisation. In 2023, he decided to create a Ukrainian team called ‘Passion UA’. The team, to this day, have an estimated total price accumulation of $143,900. Pretty impressive.
Zinchenko has a monumental 4000+ hours in Counter-Strike alone with more than 1000 games on Faceit. He is currently level 9 and has said he thinks he has the potential to reach the maximum rank of level 10. “My potential is level 10, I’m pretty confident, I just need to sharpen my shooting a bit. In general, I have more than 1000 games on Faceit”. Zinchenko has also played on stream with the likes of S1mple and as a Ukrainian, also supports Na’Vi.
Gabriel Jesus
Gabriel Jesus, was in the news not just for being a professional football player. He was plastered over prominent news outlets due to Valve’s ban over the Brazilian on Counter-Strike. Gabriel Jesus revealed himself to be an avid fan of Counter-Strike and weapon skins when he spent a whopping £30,000 in-game. However, Jesus’s over-indulgence in the market fetched him a heavy ban hammer when the developers (Valve) banned his account. The Brazilian took to twitter to resolve the issue and plead with the games company. He said, ” Hi @couterstrike my account received a VAC ban unfairly, can you help me? Follow the account link and print of ban”. After this ordeal, Jesus was promptly unbanned and was able to resume his endeavours within CS.
Nicklas ‘Lord Bendtner’ Bendtner
Former Arsenal star Nicklas Bendtner is also an avid fan of the game Counter-Strike. He is that invested that he came to save Danish CS back in February! Lord Bendtner acquired a new roster under ‘Tricked Esports’. The roster has three major attendees in, Jonas ‘Queenix’ Dideriksen, Jason ‘salazar’ Salazar and Magnus ‘Nodios’ Olsen. The trio of players enjoyed their incredible run in the open qualifiers for the Copenhagen Major 2024 with Ecstatic, showing just how capable they are of putting up results. There is also a very experienced Valdemar “Valde” Vangså serving as the In-Game Leader (IGL) and overall glue of the roster.
Honourable Mentions:
Ukrainian Nation Squad
The Ukrainian Nation Squad actually by surprise have a lot of Counter-Strike players!
In addition to these five listed on the picture above, there are some other Ukrainian players who play CS who do not make it to the main team:
- Dmytro Kryskiv, Shakhtar Donetsk: 2182 ELO.
- Oleksandr Zubkov, Trabzonspor: 2093 ELO.
- Maxim Taloverov, Plymouth: 2069 ELO.
- Danylo Sikan, Trabzonspor: 2053 ELO.
- Volodymyr Brazhko, Dynamo Kyiv: 1816 ELO.On one of his FACEIT accounts, Brazhko has a ban for SMURFING, despite the fact that he played only ONE game on that account.
- Mykhailo Mudryk, Chelsea: 1512 ELO.
- Anatoly Trubin, Benfica: 1315 ELO.
Novak Mićović
Novak Mićović is a Serbian professional football player for LA Galaxy in the MLS.
Dejan Joveljić his Serbian teammate, who also plays for LA Galaxy, has revealed that Novak peaked at 2812 Elo on FACEIT. This Elo made him the 676 highest Elo player on the platform!
Being that high an Elo and being a professional goalkeeper is quite the achievement.
Linked below is his supposed FACEIT account:
https://www.faceit.com/en/players/TIHIPRLE9
That concludes our effort to display the most popular footballers that play Counter-Strike. There are probably multiple multiple more athletes that play the game, and if we have missed some let us know!
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