Zeta Gaming: Zaragoza’s lesser-known pride

Aragon, and more specifically, Zaragoza, have teams that proudly represent the people of Zaragoza and Aragon. Real Zaragoza, Huesca and Casademont Zaragoza are the best-known sports clubs. But if we focus on a world that grows day by day, such as that of eSports or electronic sports, a club emerges that bears the name of Zaragoza at the highest national level: Zeta Gaming.

The team from Zaragoza, born in 2020, is in the top national category of the League of Legends (LoL) video game . To fight in one of the best LoL leagues in the world, Zeta Gaming has a squad of five players and a coach. Daniel ” ElOjoNinja ” Vaquero, Isaac ” Pepiinero ” Flores, Adrián ” Adryh ” Pérez, Raúl ” Ethe ” Campos and Javier ” escoX ” Escobedo are the team led by José María ” F1re ” Iznardo from Zaragoza. A native of Zaragoza, Jose María identifies a lot with the Aragonese capital and, in an interview with Aragón Digital , he values ​​the importance of having a team at these levels: “ There are no teams representing other cities, but we do have one in Zaragoza. It’s something unique ”.

Jose María is not the only Zaragoza native in the club. The sporting director, Alberto Royo, is also from Zaragoza. And Zeta Gaming has many touches of Zaragoza . The most obvious is in its name, using the initial of the city. Its official shirt this year has the detail of having the flag of Aragon embroidered just below the neck, and the club celebrates all its events in the Aragonese capital. Zeta’s coach tells us that Zaragoza is also present in the team’s day-to-day life: ” I have the players saying we are lions. These are small things that make the representation of Zaragoza present in the team.”

The League of Legends Super League works like the traditional sports world, it is a tournament with teams, players, sponsors, spectators, etc. It has ten teams that will play three splits or rounds this year . Each split will have three phases: the regular phase, the Swiss phase and the playoffs , and in each of the three, points will be added depending on the position they finish in. The four teams with the most points at the end will compete in the Final Four on the last weekend of August in Madrid to fight for the Super League trophy. “It is a big challenge, but the goal is to reach a playoff in a split . We are very hungry to achieve things,” Jose María tells us.

THE TEAM MEMBERS

Zeta Gaming is the only team in the Super League whose roster is made up entirely of Spaniards , a fact that is worth noting since it is very difficult to see at these levels. For José María, “it is very fun to work with them. They are all a bit crazy , but working with the group is very easy.” The club from Zaragoza brings together legends of this video game with players who come from lower categories.

The combination of players like Pepiinero and Adryh , who have not competed for several years, with players from lower divisions like Ethe or escoX , requires more work than other teams already established in the competition. “The start is not going to be easy, but we are progressing day by day. We are developing talent ,” the coach tells us.

The players are the protagonists in the matches, but they have a coach behind them. Although during the matches in the competition, F1ire cannot speak with his players, he does an important job. Analyzing and drawing conclusions from the last game for the next one, studying the rivals and their game, choosing the strategy to follow and optimizing the game on a day-to-day basis are some of the functions that José María performs as a coach.

THE PULL OF ESPORTS

The live broadcast of the first matchday of this year had more than 160 thousand views. And that was only on the official Superliga channel on the ‘Twitch’ platform. Because in addition, in a co-streaming broadcast by F1re, Adryh and ElOjoNinja of their first match of the competition against Ramboot Club, had more than a thousand people each.

“ You see the number and you say wow… this could be an army that could invade a city in Spain ,” joked Jose María. Zeta Gaming has a large number of followers, in addition to the established communities of Pepiinero, Adryh or ElOjoNinja, and, according to the coach from Zaragoza, “ there are a lot of people who follow us and they are also from Zaragoza .” Also, the Zaragoza team is the only one that broadcasts both its training sessions and its official matches. “ We want as many people as possible to identify with us,” explains F1re.