nitr0 opens door to Valorant return after CSGO retirement
João Ferreira for PGLTeam Liquid’s Nick ’nitr0’ Cannella does not rule out continuing his esports playing career after retiring from CS:GO, opening the door to a potential return to Valorant.
The 27-year-old announced on May 26 that IEM Dallas will be his last CS:GO tournament, explaining that the “amount of travel has become too much” following the birth of his second child.
nitr0 stated at the time that he would be focusing on streaming and spending more time with his family, though he admitted that he “would love to continue playing competitively”.
And in an interview during IEM Dallas, ‘Captain America’ did not rule out extending his playing career in a different title.
“I’m retiring from Counter-Strike, but I’m leaving my options open for other games and stuff,” he told Dust2.us.
“If I get an offer, I’ll consider it obviously, but as of now I’m just going to start my stream up and just try to just see where that takes me because there’s nothing else to really do right now. I’m not going to actively look for another Counter-Strike team because I’m just not interested right now.”
nitr0’s Valorant career
After playing CS:GO at the highest level for six years, nitr0 switched to Valorant in 2020 and joined 100 Thieves, linking up with Spencer ‘Hiko’ Martin, Peter ‘Asuna’ Mazuryk, Joshua ‘steel’ Nissan, and Ethan ‘Ethan’ Arnold — all former CS:GO players.
That team reached the semi-finals of VCT Stage 3 Masters Berlin in late 2021, but after a run of poor form, the roster fell apart. In January 2022, nitr0 returned to CS:GO and Team Liquid, the team with which he had won the $1 million Intel Grand Slam Season 2 prize.
Success has been hard to come by for Team Liquid in recent times, even after the high-profile addition of Latvian star Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis. After a 0-2 start to the BLAST Paris Major, the team rallied to reach the playoff stage, only to lose to Apeks in the quarter-finals.
Colin Young-Wolff for Riot GamesA return to Valorant would allow nitr0 to scratch his competitive itch with a much more workable travel schedule. VCT Americas teams spend most of the year in Los Angeles, where the league’s matches are held, only traveling abroad for international competitions.
Since the start of the year, Team Liquid have played tournaments in Denmark, Poland, Malta, France, Mexico and the United States. Top North American teams also have to spend long periods of time bootcamping in Europe, where the level of competition is much higher.
Team Liquid will take on FaZe later today in Group B’s lower bracket semi-final in what could be the final match of nitr0’s CS:GO career.