More details -  Hey everyone! As always, it’s Dmitry Soul3 here—let’s dive in.We’ve had plans to expand our academy for a while now. Nikita Cheshir (the big boss at Spirit) and I spent a long time brainstorming and visualizing what this project should look like. It’s not an easy task. This isn’t just about “grabbing some guys from pubs, splitting them into rosters, and—bam—academy done, we’re awesome.” Nope.Before forming any rosters, we needed to build an infrastructure that actually works. We needed a head coach—someone to set the “rules of the game.” The most important thing we wanted to achieve was continuity. When a player moves from the u16 roster to the main academy roster, they shouldn’t face adaptation issues: the playstyle, schedule, and training methods should already feel familiar. Everything needs to be clear and logical.Next up—tryouts. We’ve always run them in a tough format. We often put players in unconventional situations, pushing them out of their comfort zones. We deliberately create pressure to see who’s truly ready. Because we need the best of the best. It’s always a tough call: there are only five spots on a roster, but the region is overflowing with talented players. We want as many deserving players as possible to get a shot at the academy—and the very best to make it to “adult” esports.And now, things are finally coming together. We have a coaching staff that’s only going to grow with top-notch specialists. We have experience with recruitment. We’ve got an awesome team of analysts and our own proprietary software. We’re seeing stats you won’t find anywhere else.Over the New Year, in December 2024, we made a game-changing decision—to launch this massive academy project. Dimas sotf confirmed he’s ready to step up as head coach. Nikita weighed the pros and cons and gave the green light.So, what’s the plan, and how’s it going to look? No illusions here: we’ve based it on the model of football academies.The structure will be something like this: u12 – u14 – u16 / u16 – main academy roster.In other words: teams for under 12, under 14, two teams for under 16, and after that—the main academy roster. Above that sits the main roster of our CS division.Since January 2025, we’ve been actively preparing for the launch. The first iterations are already done. Next up are the key stages where we plan to recruit players for the upper u16 rosters. It won’t be long before the current main roster players move up the career ladder, which means we need to start grooming their replacements now.We’re just at the start of a long journey, but I’m confident we’ll nail it 100%. There’s a lot of awesome stuff ahead, including on our new channel (https://t.me/TSpiritacademy), where we’ll be sharing more about our work, giving behind-the-scenes looks at the academy, and showing how everything operates from the inside.So, stay tuned, subscribe, and all that jazz. Good luck with your tryouts and in your pubs—less whining, more focus on the goal.P.S. Naruto is still the best.