With The International 2022 in the books, the roster shuffle season started in all Dota 2 regions. While some players left their teams to explore new options, some announced their retirement, like MATUMBAMAN.
Though Matu didn’t have a detailed plan of what he would do during his retirement, it looks like the legendary core player will start his new life in the Finnish army and complete his mandatory military service.
According to Wikipedia, all male Finnish citizens are “liable to serve” 165, 255, or 347 days in the army. This means that Matu might be away from the public eye for at least five months in 2023.
A similar situation happened in 2016 when Park “March” Tae-won joined the South Korean military after an impressive run with MVP Phoenix in TI5. The roaring support player served for 23 months in the Navy of his country and returned to the Dota scene in early 2018. Upon his arrival, March was welcomed back to the Dota community with open arms as he started primarily coaching teams, and lastly working with T1’s Dota 2 squad during TI11.
Matu and March achieved great heights in their careers before serving in the military, and it’s currently unclear whether Matu would take the same path March did after completing his service. Unlike March, Matu mentioned he was retiring for good on multiple occasions, but Dota retirements generally last a lot shorter than expected due to the sheer love that players have for the game.