Brazilian head coach Nicholas “guerri” Nogueira has been coaching FURIA’s CS:GO since February 2018 when he hung up his mouse.
Since then, guerri has helped FURIA to win several online tournaments such as DreamHack Masters Spring North America in June 2020, ESL Pro League season 12 North America in September 2020, and Elisa Invitational Summer in July 2021.
Guerri was one of the 37 CS:GO coaches suspended by the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) in September 2020 when the coach spectator bug surfaced. This bug allowed coaches to place their camera anywhere on the map and to even free roam throughout the map. Guerri ran into this bug on two occasions, according to ESIC’s findings, and failed to disconnect from the match and warn the tournament admin.
In addition to his ESIC ban, Valve has banned guerri from attending five CS:GO Majors in January 2021 due to his alleged exploit of the coach spectator bug. This suspension prevents guerri from being behind the players during Major matches, taking part in the map veto process, and communicating with the players 15 minutes prior to the start of Major matches, among other restrictions.
Related: ESL forbids banned FURIA coach from talking to his team backstage at IEM Rio Major, players say
FURIA appealed to ESIC in 2022, and the esports watchdog reduced his Major ban after understanding that guerri didn’t take advantage of the coach spectator bug, according to the FURIA coach. His mistake, in ESIC’s eyes, was to not disconnect from the game.
FURIA was hoping that ESIC’s new understanding would be enough for Valve to reduce his ban as well, but the developer of CS:GO refused to take the new calculation into consideration until 2023.
That has finally happened though, with Valve taking another look at the situation in March 2023.
Guerri is now free to coach FURIA at Majors starting with BLAST Paris Major in May, the first Valve-sponsored event of 2023. Guerri has been unbanned alongside two other coaches—former MIBR coach Alessandro “Apoka” Marcucci and Bulgarian coach Anton “ToH1o” Georgiev.
Valve hasn’t commented on why guerri, Apoka, and ToH1o are free to work at Majors now, but it’s likely that the CS:GO developer has finally taken ESIC’s ban reductions into consideration.
