In a post on X and
a short YouTube video, Team BDS announced the contract extension of their head coach Yanis "
Striker" Kella through the end of 2026. With the club since 2023, Striker has experienced both highs and lows with the Swiss organization but has also become somewhat the face of Team BDS, building rosters and having a major impact on decisions made within the organization.
The year 2025 has been challenging for Striker and BDS, marked by significant roster changes. Key pillars of the project, Adam "Adam" Maanane—
now with Navi—and Théo "Sheo" Borile, who joined Team Heretics, departed the team. To fill their spots, Joel "Irrelevant" Miro Scharoll and Doğukan "113" Balcı arrived, alongside the promotion of Polat "Parus" Furkan Çiçek from the academy. Of the players who joined early in the year, only support Parus remains. Since then, BDS has made further additions
with Shin "Rooster" Yun-hwan and
Mehdi "Boukada" Lahlou from SK Gaming for €200,000, as previously reported by Sheep Esports.
And these changes were necessary for BDS. The team struggled to qualify for the playoffs during the Winter Split but managed to do so, finishing 6th in the LEC after a 2-1 loss to Fnatic. The Spring Split was even more disastrous, with BDS ending 8th at 3-6 in the regular season—falling short of playoff qualification. A tough result for a team that was playing at Worlds at the end of 2023 and regularly finishing on the podium or even in the LEC final.
In 2026, Coach Striker will begin his sixth year of coaching, starting in Spring 2021 with Kameto Corp, where he immediately won the LFL once and the EMEA Masters twice. He then joined BDS in the LEC as assistant coach to Adrien "
GotoOne" Picard, and together they qualified for Worlds 2023 in South Korea. In 2024, Striker took full command of the LEC roster following GotoOne’s departure, stepping into a new role at BDS with greater influence on strategic decisions and strong trust from the organization, as he mentions in the contract extension video.
