Photo by Stephanie Lindgren via ESL Gaming
One of the best Spanish CS:GO players in the world Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia has moved away from Movistar Riders, the best team in his country, to play for ENCE, the first international squad in his career.
The move was officialized during the summer player break and caught the CS:GO community, especially the Spanish one, by surprise due to Movistar Riders’ impressive performances in July. The all-Spanish team won ESL Challenger Valencia and made the top four in IEM Cologne, one of the most prestigious CS:GO events of the year.
SunPayus played a big role in the team’s achievements,, which made Movistar Riders break into HLTV’s top 10 for the first time since the organization was founded in 2017. The 23-year-old was Movistar Riders’ highest-rated player at IEM Cologne and the second-highest-rated player at ESL Challenger Valencia, showing the world that he’s one of the best AWPers of 2022.
Although leaving Movistar Riders behind was hard, SunPayus believes he could become a better player and person in ENCE.
“It was a very hard decision for me, but ENCE has had really good results this year, reaching three finals,” SunPayus said in an interview with HLTV. “They’re also ESL partners and made top four at the last Major, so I just saw it as a very good opportunity to keep developing as a player and person since I always wanted to see how I’d do on an international team.”
SunPayus said in the interview that his adaptation to communicating in English in ENCE is complicated at first but he’s adapting well. He’ll have big shoes to fill in the team, coming as a replacement to Olek “hades” Miskiewicz, who wasn’t doing bad and helped ENCE to become a solid top-five team in the world.
SunPayus is expected to play a big role in ENCE for the remainder of the season due to Lotan “Spinx” Giladi, the team’s former star player, departure to Vitality. The Spanish AWPer will debut under the ENCE banner at ESL Pro League season 16 in September.