If you haven’t been living under a rock, you might have noticed the commotion surrounding the now ex-BLEED players. Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunović, the former coach of BLEED, took to X in a post nine days ago to expose the organization’s unpaid salaries. The coach also revealed that not only were the players’ salaries not paid, but also the buyouts for some of the players hadn’t been paid.
BLEED tried to refute this information, but Kassad clapped back stating that they had around $300,000 (~£230,000) of outstanding payments. Subsequently, the team cut ties with the organisation and continued onwards under the banner ‘UNPAID’.
While under BLEED they qualified for the Thunderpick World Championships and their high placements in the RES Regional series granted them a place on LAN.
UNPAID, the former BLEED squad, entered the RES Regional Champions 2024 as the lowest-rated team on HLTV. Nemanja “nexa” Isaković returned to play for the team despite getting benched last month and AWPER Deyvid “h4rn” Benchev completed the roster.
CYPHER playing at RES Regional Champions 2024 – Credit: Relog Media/ RES circuit
Unsurprisingly enough UNPAID was not touted as one of the favourites. Surrounded by top teams from the European tier one circuit and some of the best teams from Brazil; in the form of Fluxo and Solid, it was sure to be a tricky tournament.
UNPAID started off in group B with their opening game against fnatic. Unfortunately their debut as UNPAID wasn’t very successful as they lost convincingly 0-2. but it wouldn’t take long for their fortunes took a turn for the better. UNPAID ended up placing second in the group as they didn’t lose a map versus Solid and then PARIVISON… Getting paid!
Making playoffs in itself was already a surprise for many people, but now they were in the money, they were looking for more.
Up first in the playoffs was Sangal, the favourite to win the tournament. A team that in the previous six months has gone from a middling top 80 team to a consistent top 20 team. Qualifying for ESL Pro League Season 20 and upsetting FaZe in their opening game, they put themselves on the map. Coming into their semi-final game versus UNPAID they had not only gone through their group undefeated, but had also made ESL Pro League Season 21 at the same time.
UNAPID’s room for RES Regional Champions 2024 – Credit: Relog Media/ RES circuit
After a gruelling three-mapper, UNPAID – to the shock of talent and fans alike – came out on top after a convincing win on Anubis 13-7. Only Nemiga stood between them and lifting the trophy.
Similar to Sangal, Nemiga also had a shot at qualifying for ESL Pro League Season 20 through ESL Challenger Season 48. Funnily enough this ran over into the time the finals were supposed to start, luckily, by only 15 minutes. It is never easy playing two back to back best of threes so already UNPAID had a slight advantage in the series. This advantage culminated in UNPIAD winning their map pick in map one.
Map two. Ancient. Nemiga had already won the map twice in the tournament against Sangal in the opening match and Fnatic in the semi-finals, simply put, they are really good on Ancient. As you would expect then, Nemiga delivered a devastating 13-7 smackdown as youngster Ivan “zweih” Gogin went nuclear.
Even though UNPAID had succeeded on Anubis against Sangal as a decider, luck was not on their side as Nemiga, on their sixth map of the day, continued their good form. Winning the map 13-6 and in the process winning the whole tournament.
Not the ending that fans wanted, but still the fact still remains that UNPAID got paid!
UNPAID got paid! – Credit: Relog Media/ RES circuit
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