The unofficial Czech national team, street debils are one of the oldest teams in ETF2L, with ten years of competition behind the name as they now make their Premiership debut. It’s not been plain sailing all the way though; the original team would take a break after Season 22 before the name was resurrected by a roster which included a Soldier pairing of gedu and Breez.

Only two seasons later, though, gedu would change back to the Medic role that they had filled on original iterations of the roster, and as which they made their name in Highlander as a seven-time "Medic of the Season" award winner, with multiple Premiership victories on Super Dickmann’s KANNONEN. They are not unknown in 6s either, with four seasons of Premiership appearances including a 4th place finish with the bin black to their name. Dishing out maincalls and heals in equal measure, they are arguably the brains of the team.

Breez, however, has stayed on Soldier ever since their return, a constant presence on the flank as the rest of the roster has come and gone through many Mid, Division 2 and Div 1 runs, before finally getting this chance to break out into Prem. While they played briefly for international teams before this, the vast majority of their experience has been on Czech teams, and with their involvement as well in tf2pickup.cz they can truly be described as the team’s beating heart.

Rounding out the Soldier partnership is ekta koling on Pocket, returning after their last showing in Season 36’s Division 1 when they had to settle for third place, behind FIVE GUYS LIVE and веазтмоде. In the intervening seasons, they have floated between High teams, with most notably a stint as Medic on Season 40’s wer das liest ist doof alongside players such as Fischkopf and schocky, with whom they took home second place. Now back and speaking their first language again, they will doubtless be keen to show they are worth more than just runners-up.

Similarly, Demo playgrey has no shortage of experience in the High divisions. They spent Seasons 38 to 40 with The Fellowship, the last two in Division 1, and though that ended with a playoffs finish it wasn’t enough and the team would fold shortly after. The next season they appeared intermittently in Division 1 with SVIFT and even made an appearance for DEATH AND DESTRUCTION in Premiership; this is technically not their debut, then, but in practice it’s the first time they will be able to regularly compete at the top level.

Finally, we come to the Scout duo of snh and tms, respectively the least and most experienced members of the roster. A member of the team since Season 40, snh originally joined to play Demo before moving to Pocket Scout this season to accommodate playgrey, and as a former member of a team called tf2pickup.cz it’s perhaps unsurprising how they met the rest of the team. This is not just their Prem debut but they have skipped Division 1 entirely; they may be the least proven member of the team but after this long together they clearly have faith.

Flank Scout tms, on the other hand, has the accolade of having played for street debils in their second ever match, all the way back in Season 12, and by the end of the original roster they were a regular fixture. Come the team’s revival, though, they wouldn’t immediately return, but in Season 38 came back to play Soldier in an ultimately short-lived Division 1 run. After this, they took a few seasons off before returning in Season 41 to play Scout, helping street debils net second place in Division 2 and setting them up for this jump to Premiership.

We caught up with founder and Roamer Breez to get some more insight into the team:

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: Street debils has gone through many lineups through the years, how did you settle on these players on these classes?

Over the last few seasons the core of the team has remained the same: degu, snh, breez and tms. We had to make a few roster changes, shifting snh from demo to pocket scout, picking up the up and comer playgrey. Koling and Breez have played on and off together over last few seasons, playing div1 twice and in one season reaching div1 playoffs. Nation and Lukas were both crucial parts of our teams, but since they both cannot play due to their work schedules we decided to pick up snh and playgrey. Degu's and tms' roles have remained unchanged

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: This is the first time this team has been in Prem, what is it about this season’s lineup that puts you in position to compete at the highest level?

We were arguably at our strongest when we had Nation and Lukas on the roster, however we are very keen on improving. We realised that we have to take a step forward in order to improve, so thats why we decided to go prem. It is also very unlikely for us to reach playoffs and some of our players are unavailable after the 7th week, so we do not want to deal with playing mercs in the div1 playoffs and ultimately losing the playoffs due the unavailability of our main players.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: You’re unofficially the Czech national team, does that put any pressure on you or does it motivate you further?

We are definitely motivated to prove ourselves, since we are the first ever czech team to play in prem. It is going to be tough, since snh and playgrey have little to no experience playing on the prem level, they are both very talented and keen, but it will require some work to build them up. Nonetheless we are looking forward to this season

Realistic about their chances but with eyes on the longer term and aware of the gaps they need to fill, street debils are:

• Pocket Scout: snh
• Flank Scout: tms
• Roamer: Breez
• Pocket: ekta koling
• Demoman: playgrey
• Medic: gedu