According to sources close to Sheep Esports, former VALORANT T1 player Daniel “Rossy” Abedrabbo has reached a verbal agreement with the VCT Americas organization, Cloud9, for the upcoming season. Other teams in EMEA APAC and NA were interested in the American player, but he decided to accept C9 to IGL the team.

A return to the Americas is a return to a familiar region for the US native Rossy, who previously played for a multitude of NA organizations, including Immortals, TSM, The Nation, Faze Clan, and Turtle Troop. During his last months with Turtle Troop, he made regular short appearances with other unsigned North American rosters for smaller tournaments before then parting ways with Turtle Troop and looking for a new team to play with in 2024. He left the region in November 2023 to join T1 in the VCT Pacifics.

Chasing success

Rossy and the Korean org were never really able to find the success they sought for in 2024. Although T1 were able to qualify for the Masters Tournament in Shanghai by reaching a third place in the VCT Pacifics Stage 1 playoffs, they had to leave the international tournament early after two losses in the first two matches. Stage 2 of VCT Pacific was similarly underwhelming, as T1 was unable to qualify for a playoffs position and Rossy was similarly unable to guarantee himself a safe starting spot, only playing in two of the regular season series before the stage ended.

Cloud9, just like Rossy himself, are aiming to leave a slump of bad performances behind, after they were unable to qualify for any international tournaments during 2024. As the NA organization was unable to reach the Play-In Stage during the 2024 VCT Americas Kickoff event and failed as well to reach further than the first level of playoffs during Stages 1 and 2, the recent season was less than satisfying. Searching for the correct lessons to learn from this performance, the organization recently parted ways with Anthony “Vanity” Malaspina and is looking for additional recruitments in addition to Rossy.