Marcelo “coldzera” David has admitted that the legendary SK Gaming roster once nearly fell apart after a furious in-house row, one so heated that he told teammate Fernando “fer” Alvarenga to “get the f*сk out of this team.” The story, told on the Talk Flow podcast alongside former teammate Epitacio “TACO” de Melo, shows just how close CS:GO’s most dominant Brazilian lineup came to breaking up in early 2017.
Why does this matter now? Because it reveals the brutal accountability culture behind one of the greatest CS:GO rosters ever assembled, and how a video message featuring Neymar and surfer Gabriel Medina helped hold the team together at its lowest point.
From Discipline To Near Disaster
Coldzera explained that strict internal accountability was always part of SK’s DNA. “Sometimes players would join and get way too comfortable,” he said, adding that the team never allowed that to happen because it would hurt everyone else. He and TACO both said that culture has faded in Brazilian Counter-Strike, while European teams, in his experience, still hold each other accountable “like crazy.”
Back in our day, there was none of that. We argued like fucking crazy. If we had to throw punches to make the guy improve, we would. Nowadays I feel like we’re behind on that here in Brazil, because in Europe the guys hold each other accountable like crazy.
Coldzera
That old-school mentality once nearly boiled over into a physical fight. Coldzera revealed he almost came to blows with fer during a tournament in Russia, right after the team suffered a painful elimination.
The Fight On The Plane
TACO filled in the details of that blow-up. The argument between coldzera and fer broke out over a message in the team’s WhatsApp group, right after SK was eliminated from a tournament StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3. That event ran in April 2017 using a Swiss-style format, where three losses meant elimination and three wins meant advancement.
SK started strong, winning their first two matches. However, they then lost three in a row and were eliminated with a 2-3 record. As a result, SK finished 9th-11th at that event.
The fallout happened almost immediately. Both coldzera and fer told each other, “I’m not playing with you anymore,” moments before the team boarded a flight from Ukraine to the United States. TACO said he was stuck in the middle, relaying messages between the two furious teammates.
A Video From Neymar Saved The Team
The team landed in Los Angeles to a surprise. Friends had prepared a motivational video for coldzera and fer. Brazilian football star Neymar appeared in it, along with surfer Gabriel Medina and other friends from a shared WhatsApp group. Their message urged the two players not to split up the roster. According to TACO, it worked.
More arguments followed. One blow-up even happened inside the team’s gaming house, where players aired old grievances at each other. Still, the crisis became a turning point for the roster.
There was a huge argument where everyone was insulting each other and airing all our dirty laundry in the gaming house. And in the end, it was good for us, because after that episode we managed to sort things out, and then we redid everything, we sat down, got back to work, and started winning again.
TACO
Why This Story Still Resonates
The timing lines up with one of CS:GO’s most dominant stretches. SK’s StarSeries Season 3 elimination came only three tournaments after a key roster swap: Lincoln “fnx” Lau out, João “felps” Vasconcellos in. Right after that crisis, the team won back-to-back titles at cs_summit 1 and IEM Sydney. A semifinal exit at ESL Pro League Season 5 followed. Then SK won three tournaments in a row: DreamHack Open Summer, ECS Season 3, and ESL One Cologne 2017.
This story shows the human side of one of esports’ greatest dynasties. The same brutal honesty that nearly tore SK apart in a Ukraine airport also forged the discipline behind their historic 2017 run. Sometimes, holding teammates accountable meant risking a real fight. For coldzera, that was simply part of building a winning culture.
