Premier League footballer subs in for his pro Counter-Strike team at the last minute and turns out to be extremely legit

Oleksandr Zinchenko is a Ukrainian footballer that currently plays for Arsenal in the English Premier League and the Ukrainian national side. The full-back and midfielder is still only 27 years old but has already had a storied career, winning the Premier League four times with previous club Manchester City alongside the FA cup and another four EFL Cups. And as well as being a world-class footballer with the world at his feet, Zinchenko loves a bit of Counter-Strike.

In 2023 Zinchenko founded esports organisation PassionUA alongside former NA'VI coach Mykhailo Blaghin (who won the 2017 PGL Major with Gambit). The goal is to assemble a Counter-Strike team consisting of young Ukrainian players that can compete at the top, and shortly after its founding the focus switched to Counter-Strike 2.

PassionUA is obviously a long-term project for Zinchenko and one he seems to be deeply involved in, but today things got even more hands-on than anyone was expecting. A member of PassionUA's team, zeRRoFIX, ran into technical issues shortly after beginning a match against Bleed at the YaLLa Compass Spring 2024 Contenders.

With one spot on the roster, the call went out to Zinchenko aka Zina to sub-in:

«Activating option 'ZINA GO CARRY,'» boomed the PassionUA account followed by multiple flame emojis. You may well be wondering at this point how good a CS2 player a Premier League footballer can be. Well, double deagle headshots are never a bad thing.

That's how you stomp on the server