Aleksei “Qikert” Golubev has ended his playing career after almost a decade and taken over as head coach of Spirit Academy. The 27-year-old Kazakh won the IEM Rio Major in 2022 and played at seven Majors.
Spirit‘s academy team presented him on X on Wednesday, pointing to his Rio trophy and his runner-up medal from Berlin in 2019. He replaces Vladislav “Flash_1” Bykov, who stays in the organisation and moves on to coach Spirit Academy White, the club’s second development team.
It is Qikert’s first job as a coach. He took charge straight away: Spirit Academy played their opening group match of CCT Europe Series 12 against Lavked on Wednesday, while they are already through to the playoffs of Series 11.
From AVANGAR to a Major trophy
Qikert made his name with AVANGAR, whom he joined in 2017. Two years later the team reached the final of the StarLadder Major Berlin, where Astralis won 2-0. The roster moved to Virtus.pro at the end of 2019, and in 2022, playing under the Outsiders name, it won the IEM Rio Major after beating HEROIC 2-0 in the final.
Virtus.pro benched him in August 2023. He then spent a year and a half with PARIVISION and went to MIBR on loan in September 2025. The Brazilians won three tournaments in a row after adding him and kl1m, and his seventh and final Major came with them at the StarLadder Budapest Major later that year.
His last organisation was 1win, which he joined in February 2026 and won MPKBK CIS LAN Season 4 with in April. 1win benched the lineup at the end of July and released it in August. He played on with the same group under the name Color until early October.
A proven pipeline
Spirit Academy has fed the main team for years. donk and zont1x were promoted from the academy in 2023 and won the Perfect World Shanghai Major with Spirit a year and a half later. Kirill “Magnojez” Rodnov also came through the academy before joining BETBOOM in 2024.
Qikert takes over an all-Russian lineup led by VILBy:
Kiryasoo (Kirill Solovkov)- VILBy (Vitaly Zakharyuta), in-game leader
- s1nside (Nikita Besedin)
- k0gaSs (Kirill Emelyanov)
- Netrix (David Kudziev)
Qikert (Aleksei Golubev), head coach
