Paris Saint-Germain eSports Team Profile

Paris Saint-Germain is one of the biggest and most popular football teams not only in France but also in the entire world. Besides that, Paris Saint-Germain is one of the oldest teams in French football with a huge tradition of winning big trophies. As the time went by, the team grew and now it has become much more than just a football team. The team had several bad periods in their history but those periods are mostly connected to their results because, in every other aspect, Paris Saint-Germain had a huge presence.

With fans in every corner of the world, Paris Saint-Germain has become a global brand recognized by those who characterize themselves as football fans and pretty much everyone else. In order to do that, Paris Saint-Germain had to venture into other fields which brought them even bigger attention and recognition. With that kind of business policies, Paris Saint-Germain is guaranteed to remain one of the biggest brands in the world of sports today.

One of those ventures is eSports industry and in a very short time, PSG has become one serious player in the entire eSports market in the European region. Venturing into eSports in October 2016, Paris Saint-Germain became one of the first professional sports teams to host a team for a certain competition in the eSports industry. Their first venture into eSports came in October 2016 when it was announced that PSG has purchased Team Huma’s spot in the 2017 Spring Split of the European Union Challenger Series.

PSG History

As we have mentioned, PSG announced their venture into eSports in October 2016 and just a couple of days after that announcement, PSG also announced that Bora ‘YellOwStaR’ Kim who announced his retirement just a couple of months before that has joined their eSports division and that he would be the head of that division. For those of you who are not aware of who Yellowstar is it needs to be said that Yellowstar is one of the biggest names in the world of League of Legends that has ever appeared in Europe.

Paris Saint-Germain did not announce their roster right away and it took them almost two months to complete their League of Legends roster. Once they found the right players, PSG has announced that Na ‘Pilot’ Woo-Hyung, Jin ‘Blanc’ Soung-min, Thomas ‘Kirei’ Yuen, Etienne ‘Steve’ Michels, and Hampus ‘Sprattel’ Abrahamsson would be playing for their League of Legends team.

At the end of that year, Paris Saint-Germain’s League of Legends team was ready to compete in the EU Challenger Series and to fight for their place in the EU LCS. At the start of the next year, Paris Saint-Germain announced that Frederic ‘Fraid’ Simonet and Matti ‘WhiteKnight’ Somunen also joined the team and that they would be filling the substitute positions in the team.

The original roster of PSG’s League of Legends team lasted until April 2017 when Pilot decided that it was time for him to leave. Pilot did not join any team at that moment and because of that, the reasons for his departure from the team have not been that clear. Just two days after Pilot had announced his departure from the team, another PSG’s player, Sprattel, also revealed that he would be leaving the team to join Ninjas in Pyjamas.

In June of this year, PSG announced that Steve would be playing for NeverBack Gaming on a loan which opened space for the team to bring in three new players for their roster. Soon after that, it was announced that Tomas ‘Nardeus’ Marsalek from the Czech Republic has joined the team together with Lewis ‘Noxiak’ Felix from Germany. PSG did not stop there and they announced soon after that that Johan ‘Klaj’ Olsson has also joined the team for the upcoming competition.

At the start of July, Steve’s move to NeverBack Gaming became official and he became the permanent member of that team while WhiteKnight announced that he will be leaving PSG in order to join Ninjas in Pyjamas one month after Steve’s departure.

Paris Saint-Germain eSports division is not only known for their League of Legends teams because they are also hosting their FIFA team as well and according to the results, that team has been much more successful than their League of Legends teams. Currently, PSG features three players in their FIFA team and those players are Ahmed ‘Aameghessib’ Al-Meghessib, Rafael ‘Rafifa13’, two times world champion August ‘Agge’ Rosenmeier, and one-time world champion Lucas ‘Daxe’ Cuillerier.

Achievements so Far

Paris Saint-Germain League of Legends team is a very young squad and they did not have enough time to achieve some great results as they are still getting accustomed to the new competition. However, in their debut in the Spring Split of the EU Challenger Series, Paris Saint-Germain had a very good group stage of the competition. After the end of the group stage, PSG was in the third place and in a very good position to achieve a good result in the playoffs.

However, they would face Fnatic in the playoffs and that did not end very well because they were eliminated in their first playoffs match. In the Summer Split of the same competition, PSG didn’t do so good as they finished in the sixth place in the group stage. However, there is still a lot of time for this team to prove that they can be a serious League of Legends team that could potentially take away a spot in the EU LCS from one of the already established eSports organizations.

However, the biggest success that this eSports organization has achieved was bringign the eSports industry into the mainstream. Rarely any professional collective decided to venture into the eSports industry before PSG announced their teams. Since then, a huge number of professional sports teams from the world of football, basketball, baseball, and other established sports are featuring their teams in some of the eSports competitions.

Current Roster

In less than a year since their League of Legends team has been competing, it has been through several roster changes. However, at this moment, it seems that PSG has managed to combine very good players and incorporate them into their team.

The position of jungler in their team is currently occupied by Thomas ‘Kirei’ Yuen while the mid lane position in the team is filled by Jin ‘Blanc’ Sung-min. AD Carry in PSG team is Tomaš Marsalek, while Johan ‘Klaj’ Olsson is currently their support player. Besides these players who are featured in PSG starting lineup, the team also features Max ‘Satorius’ Gunther as the substitute top lane player and Lewis ‘Noxiak’ Felix as a substitute support player.

The Future of PSG and eSports

Paris Saint-Germain’s eSports division might not have earned a lot of money by winning some big tournaments but they have been operating for only one year. Their roster is filled with very talented players who are just waiting for their big opportunity and if they continue with this kind of work, that opportunity will come very soon.

Led by a very experienced League of Legends player, Yellostar, PSG eSports division will continue to grow in the upcoming period and big things are expected from this organization, especially when considering that financing is not a problem for this organization which is something that rarely any organization involved with eSports can say.