Team Spirit won the international tournament PGL Astana 2025

From May 10 to 18, Astana hosted PGL Astana 2025 — a major international Counter-Strike 2 competition that brought together 16 of the world's top teams. The tournament's prize pool amounted to $1,250,000.

Team Spirit emerged as champions, defeating Astralis in the final with a score of 3:1. Aurora Gaming took third place, while FURIA, featuring Kazakh player Daniil Golubenko under the nickname molodoy, finished fourth.

Team Spirit is a cyber sports team based in Belgrade, with rosters for Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, and other games. In 2021 and 2023, they became champions of The International in Dota 2, and in 2021, they won a record-breaking $18 million. In CS, the team has demonstrated top-level performance — reaching the PGL Major semifinals in 2022 and winning two major tournaments in 2024, including the main CS2 championship in Shanghai.

The tournament took place at the Barys Arena with an audience of 12,000 spectators, while online broadcasts attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers. Thanks to the exciting matches, PGL Astana 2025 became one of the most popular CS2 tournaments outside of Majors.

The Kazakhstan Esports Federation, QCF, played a significant role in organizing the event. Since 2018, esports has been officially recognized as a sport, and QCF annually hosts over 50 tournaments, supporting the development of the industry and the growth of the digital economy.