No dramatics - just facts - read on to know the story
After months of ups and downs, after months of trying to find the ultimate Benelux based line-up, after months of very good results and after months of showing the Call of Duty 4 community that the Benelux scene has some great players roaming on the market... After all these months, the players behind the successes of sample this came to an agreement that the closure of this team's chapter was best for everyone.
Why this sudden move you ask? Simple and understandable, yet dissapointing: the team finally came to a point where they could no longer bring themselves to practicing online every day. Some due to personal reasons, others due to the lack of real successes and then some who lost the motivation to play in this team.
With the closure of the team, Lars "lrs" van Everdink decided to quit competitive gaming completely and instead chose to join sample this' higher tier, the management. If his management qualities are as good as we believe them to be then he'll make a great addition to our team.
Robert "mean" Kouters has made it clear that he will be actively looking for a new team to once again be active on a professional level and hopefully attend LANs in and around Europe. So all top teams around the world, be sure to send him a private message on IRC! Niels "nielsson" Gossman however, will not be looking for a new team, deciding instead to put competitive gaming on hold for the moment to see what options lie in the offing.
The other three ex-players of sample this have not yet decided what they will do next. Robin "ImpreZ" Mertz is considering a complete stop to his Call of Duty 4 carreer whereas Kaj "kajsk1ng" van Staalduinen and Jim "ownrr" de Ronde haven't made any decisions as of yet and are still evaluating their options.
Oh no, no more sample this you think? I beg the differ. sample this is alive and well and we are currently looking to rebuild a new team from scratch to once again play on the highest level of the Call of Duty 4 eSports scene. We have a lot of projects in the pipeline and I'm sure Lars would have had better things to do if he thought this organization was dead in the water.
All I can say right now is: stay tuned for our new community website in a couple of months, stay tuned for our new Call of Duty 4 lineup in a few weeks and in general, stay tuned for us to blow you away once we kick things into a higher gear!
I've been a part of sample this since the start. We had some great results with the team. After i34 frustrations came on ventrilo because of people not motivated to play anymore, of which I am one of. I lost the motivation to practice 4 times a week after i34, because I realised that we probably couldn't do much better than that, which was disappointing for me and ruined my motivation to keep on practicing.
I want to thank everyone for giving me a great time in cod4 so far, and I hope more will come. I wish the best to all (ex)players from sample this and all who have supported us, thanks for everything.
As longest serving member, I've been proud to be part of this team for so long. I've seen players coming and going, stepping up and growing into the game. There were good times, there were bad times, but now it's time to move on. I've had the honour to play along some of the best players in this game and to achieve some great results.
However, there are new exciting chapters ahead. I want to thank every (ex-)player, the management and all who have supported us, for their effort and for a great experience during the past months. <3
I joined up with team sample this about a month ago after a good performance during the online i34 qualifiers. Unfortunately due to personal reasons I was unable to attend i34 itself but the team performed really nice in England. After this tournament the team came back home and the plans where to play online as much as possible again.
However, things didn't turn out as we expected, people became inactive, the fun ingame was gone and instead of playing as much as possible we played zero to none online matches after i34. ImpreZ, Kaj and I are still thinking about what to do next but hopefully you will see us all again soon!