The former Team Secret coach, Gilbert “Gibo” Sales Jr., has been appointed as the coach of the ARF Team, the organization revealed on Instagram yesterday.
INDONESIA – Gilbert “Gibo” Sales Jr. makes his return to VALORANT after spending more than a year coaching Filipino squad Team Secret (also previously Bren Esports), whom he departed in January after expressing a desire to take a break from competition and return when he was ready.
This will be Gibo’s second coaching stint after guiding the Team Secret lineup between 2020 and 2021. With the veteran at the helm, the team went on to win nine notable titles over the course of 17 months, including the First Strike and VCT SEA Stage 3 Challengers Playoffs trophies — the latter of which secured them a spot at the 2021 VCT Masters 3 Berlin.
One of Gibo’s coaching career highlights includes reaching last year’s VALORANT Champions with Team Secret, where they beat Crazy Raccoon and Team Vikings and snatched a map from Masters 3 champions Gambit Esports, to make it to the top eight of the most prestigious VALORANT tournament in 2021.
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(Photo courtesy of Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games)
The Filipino coach will now cross borders to continue his coaching career with the Indonesia-based ARF Team, who recently finished in seventh place in VCT Indonesia Stage 2 Challengers despite being a completely new team. The Indonesian-Singaporean lineup was originally assembled under the Babi Guling tag for the aforementioned tournament. After reaching the group stage, they were the only team in the competition without an organization until early May, when ARF Team formally secured the services of the roster.
The squad is made up of former Reality Rift duo Rochino “Spyko” Belial and Justin “Maskon” Adams, as well as three former Bigetron Esports players in Nico “OnigiRi” Alvanius (Astro), Sergio “no1syboy” Rahardja (Arctic), and Rey “vascalizz” Pardede (Arctic).
ARF Team became the fourth Indonesian organization to invest in foreign support staff after BOOM’s Ji “meow” Dong-jun, ONIC’s ExiledEwok, and Alter Ego’s Kang “TRY” Tae-wook.
With Gibo’s addition, ARF Team are now:
- 🇸🇬 Rochino “Spyko” Belial
- 🇮🇩 Justin “Maskon” Adams
- 🇮🇩 Nico “OnigiRi” Alvanius
- 🇮🇩 Sergio “no1syboy” Rahardja
- 🇮🇩 Rey “vascalizz” Pardede
- 🇵🇭 Gilbert “Gibo” Sales Jr. (Coach)
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Cover photo courtesy of Michal Konkol/Riot Games
