Twitch streamer and former CS:GO professional Tarik ‘tarik’ Celik slammed Sentinels management for its Valorant roster’s lack of a coach during a watch party of the team in the Valorant Champions Tour Stage 2 Challengers qualifiers.
Sentinels have been under the microscope since their failure to make the first Masters event of 2022 and even more so thanks to their recent roster moves. According to tarik, the management needs to be blamed for the lack of a coach as the team continues to struggle to return to its old level.
Sentinels is the only top team in North America without some kind of coach or analyst at the moment. They briefly had Shane ‘Rawkus’ Flaherty, a former Overwatch League competitor and ex-Valorant player for FaZe, in the role for four months.
“They have the most popular Valorant team in the world,” tarik said while watching Sentinels lose to Luminosity Gaming on May 1. “As a manager of this org, if I was working there or if I was the CEO, I would be pushing to get these guys a f*****g coach right away, and they clearly want one.”
tarik specified that he does not know how Sentinels as an organisation work, but that fans should at least give some criticism towards it and management instead of the players.
“The players are catching all the flack, but where’s the org in all this?” he asked.
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A summary of the Sentinels coaching saga
In the absence of a coach, Shahzeb ‘ShahZaM’ Khan has been the brain behind the team in terms of in-game leading, opposition scouting, and strategies.
At the 2021 VCT Masters events in Reykjavík and Berlin, Sentinels went without a coach and had their manager, Kevin ‘Kez’ Jeon, a former League of Legends pro, take the coaching position on stage.
The team signed Rawkus on a loan deal from FaZe just before Valorant Champions in November 2021 and he stayed with the team until February 2022. But a permanent deal failed to materialise due to disputes between FaZe and Sentinels over his buyout.
On March 15, ShahZaM confirmed on stream that Sentinels had found a new Valorant coach, who was due to be announced before the Stage 1 Challengers playoffs. That announcement has yet to happen.
Sentinels continue their quest to rejoin NA Challengers in the second qualifying tournament starting May 5.
