UK esports organisation TCA have let their League of Legends team go.
The roster was as follows:
- Top: Pavle ‘Yoppa’ Kostić
- Jungle: Josh ‘J3T’ Bhella
- Mid: Daniel ‘Kroghsen’ Krogh
- ADC: Matt ‘Deadly’ Smith
- Support: Neyas ‘Raizins’ Guruswamy
- Sub: Matthew ‘Matty Triceps’ Cheung
- Head Coach: Tobias ‘Mowarth’ Sjunnesson
- Coach: Daniel ‘Lonardi’ Cramon
The org made the announcement on their website.
“This team was put together with the goal of winning the ESL Premiership and gaining the Challenger Series qualifiers spot,” TCA said.
“We honestly believed that this squad would have had a good chance of reaching that target, and when we were unable to reach this goal, it hit both the players and staff hard.
“After our nail-biting game three loss to MnM in the playoffs, we had a discussion with the players to see how they felt and see what everyone would like to do from here. It was quite clear that it was going to be difficult to progress as we had failed our one objective with the team.
“We would like to take this opportunity to thank every player/staff member involved with the TCA League team this year for bringing us some happy memories and fantastic games.
“Furthermore, TCA would like to also apologise to UK Masters and the teams we could not face (MnM/Sensei) for not finding a team to compete, as we feel this hinders the quality of a great tournament and is amateurish from our side.”
“We honestly believed this squad had a good chance of reaching the CS qualifiers spot, and when we were unable to reach this goal, it hit both the players and staff hard.”
TCA made a big impact in the ESL UK Premiership in the most recent split, and deservedly finished as a top four side. This was especially significant considering they were previously a bottom four team in prior splits.
Yoppa has now moved to ASUS ROG, J3T will be playing for Bulldog Esports at i59, while Lonardi is now coaching Tricked Esports.
Support player Raizins and ‘child prodigy’ ADC Deadly are free agents and looking for new teams.
TCA say they ‘new things are in store’, but it’s not clear what their next steps will be.
So could TCA come back with another UK League team in the future?
There’s probably a 50/50 chance.
You can check out our recent video interview with Raizins, Deadly and founder Luna here:
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
