PiPou discusses transition to coaching

PiPou 's history in Overwatch coaching stretches back to before the game was even released. Yet PiPou is now setting out to coach the Samsung Morning Stars Samsung Morning Stars Contenders EU Rank #10 WeaQ off tank Akaya flex support cucubau Adrian Cucu dps Shikaaree dps FaKeLioN tank Adnar Federico Arena support , two years removed from his last coaching stint. You could say it has been a while.

He began his Overwatch career during the early days of the game's closed beta and played for a number of teams. In March of 2016, still two months from Overwatch's release date, PiPou joined the top French team at the time, melty eSport Club melty eSport Club Inactive baud Julien Robert off tank NiCOgdh Nicolas Moret dps Hqrdest Jeremy Danton dps Badger Bo Katzenmaier tank DeGuN Laurent Prinderre support TEK36 Théo Guillebaud support , as a coach.

His time as melty's coach ended in October of that year and he would return to his playing career. Still, the coach in PiPou never left.

"My biggest mistake as a player was to try to coach other people," PiPou said.

In fact, it got him in trouble with his last team.

"[Former Eagle Gaming coach Féfé] told me a lot of times I shouldn't do that because it is not my job."

Despite that, the role just seemed natural for PiPou. The in-game leader on every team he played on, he felt his greatest strengths were his game sense and game understanding. Still, when it was time for PiPou to look for other opportunities outside of Eagle, his looking for team tweet declared he was exploring options as a player.

However, Morning Stars general manager san alex approached him with an offer too good to pass up for the 30 year old PiPou. Not only was he given an opportunity to become the new head coach of the Morning Stars, he would also work directly with san alex in building the roster. PiPou knew just what he wanted to look for.

We are proud to announce our new Overwatch Head Coach Richard "Pipou" Buscemi. Of Italian descendant, @PipouOW comes from the Contenders Season 2 Champion team Eagle Gaming.

Richard will be presented tonight at 9pm live on our Facebook Page pic.twitter.com/rYMxncamRw — Samsung Morning Stars (@MorningStarsET) October 3, 2018

In all, Samsung Morning Stars trialed 40 different players, according to PiPou. He broke down his trial process into three phases. In the first phase, he looked at players' attitudes, individual mechanics and flexibility. In the second phase, he looked at synergy between players within internal scrims. By the third and final phase, he only looked at two players on each role. By this point, a player's communicative abilities would set them apart from the competition.

"I refused a lot of friends because I really wanted to be impartial," PiPou said. He also ensured that each player during the second phase played the same number of games in an effort to remain as fair as possible.

The team he and san alex built is finally being revealed to the public. So far, the organization has announced four of the roster's players -- Caspere , dridro , Nisa and ksp -- with more to come. PiPou believes he has a lot to offer them as a coach.

Within the game, PiPou says he can help develop players' understanding of the game, their adaptability, and how the players should communicate with each other. However, he won't just be coaching them within the game.

"Outside of the game, I can help [players] have a good sleep schedule and good nutrition," he said. "It's really important for the [player's] mindset and performance."

PiPou has been happy in his short-time with the organization. He believes they treat the players and staff like family, something he hasn't felt since he was a member of Team LDLC Team LDLC Inactive OURS2RUE Romain Clem off tank Hqrdest Jeremy Danton dps WoRsS Hugo Tisserant dps Chubz Simon Vullo tank baud Julien Robert support PiPou Richard Buscemi support .

Still, he's keeping his eyes on the prize. The new roster has yet to play an official match, and will be looking to get the results to back the team's hype. In keeping this mindset, PiPou recalls a quote from Féfé.

"I’m not here to have friends, I’m here to win."