valens on Golden: "[His status is] a day-to-day thing. We’re not exactly sure"
According to an interview from Soham "valens" Chowdhury on Unikrn, the status of Cloud9's IGL is still up in the air and currently undecided. With the Swede currently set to miss out on the upcoming IEM Katowice Major, his status after the event is still unknown.
In the interview valens stated that they were waiting on news from Golden's doctors, with the team "not exactly sure" when the result of his news could be, waiting "day-to-day" in regards to new information about his status. The focus of Cloud9 is on Golden's health as a whole, rather than rushing him back if the Swedish player wasn't ready.
valens: He wants to be back, he’s ready to play but his doctors, if they say it’s not a good idea with the traveling and things like that, that’s kind of the final say. We told him very clearly, as much as we want you back and as much as you want to play, we’ve got to think long term here. We want you to be back long-term when you’re fully healthy so let’s go with what the doctors say.
During Golden's absence, compatriot Robin "flusha" Rönnquist has been taking up the IGL responsibilities. With regards to flusha retaining the role of IGL if Golden was to return, the team are yet to come to a decision, with valens stating that the team were "going to have some discussions after the Major ends" regarding that topic.
Golden has officially been out of action since the end of November, although his health problems date back to BLAST Pro Series: Copenhagen when valens was forced to stand-in for the player. valens acted again as a stand-in at the ECS Season 6 Finals, before Cloud9 brought on Ismail "refrezh" Ali for their final event of the year at BLAST Pro Series: Lisbon. More recently, Jordan "Zellsis" Montemurro was acquired on a trial basis at the end of December in order to play out Cloud9's first tournaments of the year.
valens himself is currently in the spotlight for his future with Cloud9, with the coach currently looking to step back from the front line duties of the team and move into a more analytical role. His replacement is still to be determined, with Ron "Rambo" Kim currently looking like the lead candidate for the job.
Cloud9 will be in action this weekend, January 25th-27th, at the ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational where they will face FaZe in the first game at 2 PM EST.
