A day before EPIC.LAN 45 starts Iberian Soul ranked 34th in the world, confirmed their spot with UK CS’ bad boy, Owen “smooya” Butterfield.
After the big announcement of The Last Resort signing WildLotus, it meant there were five tickets and PC hires up for grabs, as TLR already had both. birdfromsky posted on X, offering to sell their tickets and PCs, and Iberian Soul snapped up the opportunity.
Previously, the highest-ranked team attending would have been ECSTATIC, ranked 25th in the world, but they have since pulled out due to visa issues. Therefore, Iberian Soul makes the journey to Kettering as favourites to lift the trophy.
As previously mentioned, Iberian Soul will be bringing in smooya as a ringer at his local event. The British AWPer has stood in for the Spanish squad in the Galaxy Battle 2025 Phase 3 and the ESL Pro League Season 22 European Closed Qualifier after they parted ways with Renato “stadodo” Gonçalves.
A key highlight in the three games that he has played for Iberian Soul was his semi-finals and grand finals performance in the Galaxy Battle Phase 3, demolishing Nexus and Copenhagen Wolves with a 1.25 rating across six maps.
smooya will be reuniting with his previous teammates Alejandro “alex” Masanet and Alejandro “mopoz” Fernández-Quejo Cano from his stint in Movistar Riders back in 2021. The British snipers’ stint on Movistar riders lasted 6 months, where they won a few Iberian tournaments, such as the ESL Masters España and RTP Arena Cup 2021.
Alongside this victory, the Spaniards would go back-to-back and win Exort The Proving Grounds Season 2, this time utilising ex-Wildcard AWPer, Love “phzy” Smidebrant.
Iberian Soul approach EPIC.LAN 45 in red hot form, and have even been linked to the French organisation Gentle Mates by Sheep Esports. The four remaining players are set to be joined by 9z’s AWPer, Antonio “Martinez” Martinez. The squad have been orgless since January KOI’s departure from the scene in January.
The last time smooya came to EPIC.LAN, he was surrounded by a bit of controversy. During the EPIC.LAN 41 grand finals between The Neighbours and K10, there was a much-publicised incident where smooya stood up, turned round and looked at the screen immediately following a round win for The Neighbours. EPICLAN announced an investigation was underway shortly after the grand final had concluded.
Because of these actions, the AWPer received a financial penalty following the event for breaches of integrity.
While widely understood that he was banned, UKCSGO.com have been informed that smooya had not been the recipient of a ban from the event.
smooya looking at the game screen during the EPIC.LAN 41 finals.
Now the decorated player returns to Kettering for the first time in over a year, he will be looking for an eighth EPIC.LAN title on this monstrous roster.
Alongside standing in for Iberian Soul, smooya has recently revived the fish123 tag, winning United21 League Season 33 and placing second in the 34th edition of United21. Unfortunately, neither of these events are VRS ranked. He has still been able to flex his muscles with a 1.28 rating on HLTV across his 41 maps in the last three months.
The British AWPers’ most recent foray into UK CS hasn’t bled the success he would have wanted as BOXED bombed out of the UKIC Season 6 Division 1 playoffs, losing to 28AvgAge.
Iberian Soul joins The Last Resort, FUT, AaB (then Preasy), Alliance, and Glitchtech as most likely the final European team to sign up for EPIC.LAN 45.
