Next, I developed my human skills by myself but mostly by reading a lot of books on the subject. For apart more specific like the law and the jurisdiction, I learned that by myself because I wanted to own a society since I’m 18 and I was so close to buy a printing house just before I got in EnVy.

The mastering of english is something essential in the universe of CS: GO. My english got better by himself. My high school english teacher taught me the basics, I developed by listening to music and translate them (same with series) and my english got better when I met foreign players/managers during LANs.

Lots of people helped me during my career, like Nathan with my first contacts in english with organisers of competitions, or the manager of Dimension4 who showed me his job at the beginning of my career. Also thinking of MoMaN who gave me some contacts and what to say to them, Devilwalk from fnatic who allowed me to understand the basics easily. Jerôme reassured me at a moment when I doubted about the role of manager that we have a big impact in positive and negative moments.

WHAT’S THE JOB OF MANAGER IN CS : GO

If I had to resume my job in a few words?

The manager is the guy who has to be methodical instead of the players, close to them to understand and hear what they have to say. But also to put barriers to their own good.

He is the link between the structure and the players.

With time, my missions didn’t change. It just evolved, logistic, organisation of the travelling, manage the schedule (tournaments, training, vacations before the regulation of WESA), press, manage the structure…

There is also the human part by giving advice and my point of view on their communications and the influence of the communication in their victories and defeats. Of course, we have to be here in the conflicts, to manage them. We need to have this filter to avoid bigger problems. Maybe I tried to avoid conflicts maybe too much when it was the right solution.

This questioning on our role has to be permanent.

THE MANAGEMENT OF EGOS, THE KEY TO SUCCESS

In France, the hardest mission is the management of egos. We are known for that, and might be linked to a french spirit to never be satisfied of a situation and always want more. The manager has to put his ego aside because he has to be the strongest person on the team.

Most of our players are concerned, like shox, NBK, apEX, ScreaM and even Happy in his way. If ego isn’t just a french thing, foreign players are mostly able to put it aside to play with people they don’t like. This war of egos is the reason G2 blown up.

On my side, I prefer the team cohesion, trying to have a lot of human links between players to be able to go through defeat periods.

Other countries may have their negative specificities, thinking of Ukraine and their impulsive players.

Another essential point is the management of salaries and jealousies between players. I had some huge difference of salaries (x4) in the same team and it is almost impossible to handle. And the explosion of salaries in some teams can clearly work on the motivation, cash prizes are just a secondary way to be paid so players lose a lot of motivation because they are paid even if they lose.

I don’t think we have to back to the past but maybe we have to insist on a reward of results, to take more space in the salaries. This is a method we put in EnVy with bigger or lower rewards depending on our HLTV ranking.

THE FONCTIONNEMENT OF TEAMS SHOULD CHANGE

Even if the structure has the possibility to kick every element, nowadays we are in an eSport dominated by the players. For example: managers are dependent on the players about their salaries, it restrained our independence, I don’t think that the decision of the downside is optimal, for the structure and also for the player.

We have to inspire from sport to put managers, coach, analysts for a long time.

I also have some ideas where the duo/trio (we can take the example of Niak and Ex6TenZ) would be paid by other players who would have to believe in this project. We can also think about a structure owned by the players, where the manager would have to search sponsors to ensure continual salaries to the players and where everyone owns a part of the team. In the case where they want to kick someone, they just have to buy him his part.

In every case, actual structures should make strong choices by putting their trust in the hands of the manager. Especially when the phases of creation/modification happens, we have to say no to a star player who doesn’t want to work with a certain manager.

We don’t have to look too far to see that other eSports made those choices: I’m thinking about Overwatch League which is very well managed.