The Spanish Counter-Strike community has been rocked by a lack of opportunities to grow and become one of the most influential in Europe. Wait, has it?

This very same community was stunned last year when it learned that Spain would hold no qualifier for the Electronic Sports World Cup, thus missing out on the opportunity to be represented at "the world's best e-Sports event", as some call it.

However, and truth be told, if Spain had had a qualifier for the ESWC, it would not have made much of a difference in San Jose.  At ESWC Masters - the only chance to have a Spanish representative at the World Finals - x6tence would bow out of the tournament at the group stage with a disappointing 3 points.

It has been nothing short of a fall from grace for Spain, which has gone from a country capable of going head-to-head with the world's biggest names at WEG and ESWC and winning the Samsung European Championship to one somewhat left out of the Counter-Strike map.

Indeed, winning SEC back in 2006 - when Counter-Strike: Source was being used - remains the country's sole international achievement in years worth mentioning. That year was in fact great for Spain - x6tence would also win GameGune and place 5th-8th at ESWC.

So what happened? What has caused Spain's poor performances and early exits in tournaments, which are translated into comical places in every ranking?

First of all, we should put aside no-salary theories, which, despite true in this case, cannot serve as excuse for everything.  If I were to describe what the Spanish Counter-Strike scene has been for some time in just one word, I would pick "instability".

The latest volume of this Greek tragedy has been the ESL Pro Series. As you probably know, EPS leagues are held in several countries across Europe and truly are the epitome of what professional gaming in e-Sports strives to be. But that hasn't been the case in Spain.

When I had a look at the league's roster ahead of the start of season four, I thought to myself: "This season will be great, four strong teams that are serious contenders." How wrong I was.

Just two weeks into the season, K1ck eSports Club announced their team had become inactive, leaving the league with just seven outfits. Then, and in the space of just one month, wtm-Gaming announced the disbandment of the team, Ledpc underwent multiple roster changes and x6tence captured Rafael "FeldmaN" Rodríguez Barroso.

Since in the Spanish EPS league there is no mid-season transfer window and a player cannot represent more than one team during the course of the season, such transfer saga has left this season even worse than its predecessors, to the point that the Ledpc-x6tence derby - easily regarded as a Counter-Strike version of El Clásico - saw each team use a manager, much to the fans' disappointment.

This means that, of the initial four highly-favoured squads, only two remain in the competition and that the lower-tier teams are the only ones to actually go through the season unaltered. Funny, yet pointless as it will not be enough to see them move past the big boys. A pity.

All in all, the Spanish Counter-Strike scene has been unable to take advantage of some of the opportunities it has been given, the EPS being just an example of them. Although some might complain about the league's poor management and less-than-impressive prize pool - which was allegedly supposed to be as high as the German league's by season three - it is still a competition worth practicing for, not just for the cash, but also because winning it represents a direct entry in the Extreme Masters league. Which football club would pass on the opportunity to play the Champions League?

The Spanish community's hopes for a return to the limelight were really high after the national team managed to qualify for the ENC Finals. However, the rest of 2008 was pretty much a blank page on the Counter-Strike yearbook. A shame, given that this was probably the most successful year for Spain in sports' history, with Rafael Nadal finally clinching number-one honours in the ATP Ranking and the Spanish national football squad lifting a much-awaited trophy at Euro 2008.

In an informal conversation with one of the leaders of Spanish-based organization Giants, I was told that they have no plans to sign a team from David Villa's country because of the instability such move would bring. Go figure.

First photo by readmore.de; second photo by arenazero.net.