Sentinels reportedly to hire Sean “sgares” Gares as coach
American professional esports organization Sentinels has been on the lookout for a new head coach for their VALORANT gaming division since February this year. After scouting for the right candidate, the organization has finally found its new coach and one of the names associated is former CS:GO turned VALORANT analyst Sean “sgares” Gares.
Sentinels’ VALORANT team captain Shahzeb “ShahZaM” Khan in a Twitch stream on March 15 has confirmed that fans will no longer have to worry about the team coach-less status anymore as the organization will soon reveal who will don the head coach status.
ShahZaM said the team will lock the mysterious head coach ahead of playoffs for the VALORANT Champions Tour 2022 Stage 1 Masters in Reykjavík from April 10-24.
“Hopefully, we’re locking him in before playoffs,” ShahZaM said. “We already have a coach, we just couldn’t get him locked before this match.”
Sentinels losing its touch, declining performance
Sentinels’ VALORANT division appears to have lost its touch these days around. Performance-wise the team is quite relatively in good condition after they defeated Fnatic and secured the first position in Masters Two Reykjavík last year.
But recently, Sentinels appear to have lost its touch in this year in VCT 2022 Stage 1 Challengers. Sentinels managed to sweep a few victories from the first to the fifth week of the competition, recording two consecutive wins on the first and second week, losing on the third against OpTic Gaming 2-1, triumph over Rise 2-1 on the fourth only to be defeated with a margin-wide score against Version1 2-0 on March 13.
This is far from stellar but still worthy of appraisal performance from Sentinels. The team currently in Group B has been qualified to proceed to the competition’s playoffs, having a 3-2 win/lost record has made them sit on No. 3 on the board behind OpTic Gaming.
In order to move forward and beat both of the leading teams of OpTic Gaming as well as Version1 (5-0 win/lost record) will require Sentinels to get a full grip on the team’s current existing internal issue, namely finding their new head coach.
After failing to invite FaZe’s Shane “Rawkus” Flaherty for a permanent contract following “buyout complications” as per multiple sources, there are many speculations about the team’s new coach and it gets more urgent since Sentinels has been scheduled to a standoff with The Guard on March 18.
With this in mind, one of the rumored and strongest coach candidates everyone has been speculated about is Gares.
Gares possible team coach
Gares made a tweet after he had failed to make into the broadcast talent for Masters 1 in Reykjavík. The now gaming analyst stated he will be getting more involved in the competitive scene and will refrain from broadcast talent positions.
The link to Gares’ being the head coach is stronger than ever as ShahZam replied to Gares’ tweet with a picture of him standing next to Gares and teammate Hunter ‘SicK’ Mims. Most notably, the three have shared time-fighting under the same banner that is Misfits in around 2017-2018.
Whether Sentinels is set to have Gares as the new team coach again remains unclear, but considering all strong links laid on the table so far, Gares might be reunited with both of his former teammates ShahZam and SicK.
