Another major sports organization is expanding its esports operations to Dota 2, with Polish football club Wisła Kraków signing a new roster geared up to compete in upcoming events.
This was unofficial news, but the organization wanted to make sure they had the right group of players working together before signing players.
Wisła Kraków's Wisła All iN! The Games Krakow Dota roster includes five players, a manager, and a commentator/host, many of whom have teamed up multiple times to compete in recent events and qualifiers.
-Natan “Exotic_Deer” Michalewicz
-Marcel “Ekken” Hołowienko (captain)
-Kuba “Jacop” Staniszewski
-Marcin “Molex” Bucki
-Patrick "Crush" However
-Michał “Guerilla” Dziwak (manager)
-Tomek “Bandit” Borys (host)
All the players and staff are from Poland and the most career member of the team, Exotic_Deer played for several strong teams in 2018 like Team Kinguin and Let's Do It. Ekken will serve as team captain.
“We are glad that Wisła Kraków has taken us under her wing.” said Ekken. “We think this connection with the organization will be something special. It will definitely help push the Polish esports scene upwards, thus pumping Polish Dota 2 fans. Our potential, our motivation and, above all, we believe we can achieve a lot.”
Prior to this move, Wisła Kraków took the field with a relatively successful CS:GO roster led by Grzegorz “SZPERO” Dziamałek and several FIFA players. Now the organization hopes to provide more stability for the Dota scene in Poland while simultaneously competing with the best teams and growing the brand.
“We are really pleased that we were able to establish another division within our structures,” said Mieszko Łabuz, head of sales and e-sports at Wisła Kraków. “We also hope for a positive revival of the scene in Poland. By joining Dota 2 we stand in line with global brands like PSG or AS Monaco – hopefully we can face them soon!”
According to management, the team is already training together at the facilities and says they will release some content in the near future, as well as compete in some upcoming events.