In the long arc of Rocket League esports, some names are attached to a single peak. Kais “Sadjunior” Zehri’s story is spread across two eras. He was one of the first North American players to treat car soccer as something more than a novelty, riding the transition from Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars into the early Champions Series years, winning regional titles on stage, and then reinventing himself as a full time coach in the RLCS X and post-X era.
A Canadian player born in 1997, Zehri first entered the scene as a mechanically curious teenager, then spent 2015 to 2017 as a starter on teams like Cosmic Aftershock, Kings of Urban, NRG, Denial, and FlyQuest. He helped Kings of Urban win Season 1’s North American online finals, won another regional title with NRG in Season 2, and reached back-to-back World Championships before the scene moved on to a younger wave of stars.
Instead of disappearing, he shifted to the margins, first as a substitute on Cloud9’s Season 6 world championship roster, then as a coach for North American and international lineups. By the mid-2020s, his career had come full circle. He was no longer the teenager on stage but an established strategist behind benches for Oxygen Esports, Spacestation Gaming, The Ultimates, and Twisted Minds, a world champion coach helping a new generation navigate tournaments far larger than the ones he grew up in.
This profile traces that path, from SARPBC ladders to RLCS titles and MENA superteams, and considers where Kais “Sadjunior” Zehri fits in the history of Rocket League.
SARPBC Roots And A Mechanical Mindset
For Zehri, Rocket League did not start in 2015. It started years earlier on PlayStation 3, when he downloaded the demo for Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, liked what he saw, and bought the full game. In later biographies he recalled that SARPBC was the first title he ever purchased on the PlayStation Store, a game he stuck with “for years” until he lost access to his console.
When he finally got another PS3, he went back to SARPBC and was still playing when Psyonix began talking about a spiritual successor. That meant he entered the Rocket League alpha not as a newcomer but as someone already comfortable with timing, wall play, and the odd physics that made car soccer feel different from other esports.
In those days organized competition meant community leagues and small online cups. Rocket Hockey League and Rocket League Central ran early tournaments with little or no prize money attached. Zehri later described playing in those events purely “for fun,” before there was any hint of the six figure prize pools that would follow. Those repetitions built his sense of rotation and spacing and made him one of the players most ready for a professional structure when Psyonix announced the Rocket League Championship Series.
Cosmic Aftershock, iBUYPOWER, And The First Sponsored Era
By mid-2015, Zehri had joined forces with two other early standouts, Cameron “Kronovi” Bills and Randy “Gibbs” Gibbons, on a roster that came to be known as Cosmic Aftershock. In press coverage of that period, Cosmic Aftershock appears as one of the first truly dominant North American teams and as one of the earliest lineups to attract outside sponsorship.
Later that year the roster signed with hardware brand iBUYPOWER and rebranded as iBUYPOWER Cosmic, one of the first cases of a major non-endemic sponsor backing a Rocket League team. The trio spent late 2015 and early 2016 winning and placing highly in community leagues and in the first season of the RLC Pro League, where records show a third to fourth place finish that helped cement their status at the top of the scene.
Those early months are where much of the community’s image of “Sadjunior the player” was formed. Fans watched his streams to copy his positioning and decision-making, and at least one contemporary described staying “loyal to that SadJunior playstyle” after binging his broadcasts when Rocket League first came out. The specifics of his mechanics would keep evolving, but the foundation was set: a methodical, team-focused player comfortable in longer rotations rather than solo-queue chaos.
Kings Of Urban And The Season One RLCS Breakthrough
In spring 2016, Zehri left iBUYPOWER and briefly joined Genesis before settling with Fireburner and Jacob on Kings of Urban, the team that would define his first RLCS era.
When Psyonix launched RLCS Season 1 with two regional divisions and an LA world championship, Kings of Urban quickly became the top seed in North America. Articles from that period describe Kais “SadJunior” Zehri as part of a roster that had dominated early brackets and arrived at the first RLCS league as favorites. In the Season 1 North American online finals they finished on top of their side of the bracket, earning a share of the regional prize pool and a ticket to Los Angeles.
On LAN, however, they ran into the growing parity of international Rocket League. Records from the RLCS Season 1 World Championship show Kings of Urban exiting in the seventh to eighth place range, far short of the title that early fans expected. The loss did not erase their domestic success, but it set a pattern that would haunt several of Zehri’s teams in the next two seasons: North American dominance that did not quite translate on the biggest stage.
NRG Esports And A Second Regional Crown
Later in 2016, NRG Esports entered Rocket League and signed the core of Kings of Urban. Zehri moved with Fireburner and Jacob to the new organization for Season 2, forming the first NRG Rocket League trio.
In league play they were again the class of the region. Over seven weeks of North American matches, NRG went 6–1 with a 19–6 game record, finishing first in the table and claiming the top seed for the regional championship. In the Season 2 North American finals they converted that advantage into a regional title, giving Zehri his second straight RLCS regional crown in as many seasons.
The world championship in Amsterdam followed the same script as Season 1. NRG entered as North America’s best hope, won early matches, and then fell short. Tournament records place them in the fifth to sixth range, well below the eventual champions from Europe.
At the end of that run NRG made a difficult change, replacing Zehri with Garrett “GarrettG” Gordon. An ESPN feature on free agency framed the move as a gamble, describing Sadjunior as one of the biggest names from the first two RLCS seasons, praised for solid performances and “a very stable playstyle” that could fit almost any roster. The decision effectively ended his time as a franchise starter on a top North American favorite.
Denial, Myth, And FlyQuest: A Last Stand As A Starter
After leaving NRG in early 2017, Zehri spent a brief period on EQuinox before that roster was acquired by Denial Esports. Denial’s timeline records note the acquisition of Lethamyr, CorruptedG, and SadJunior in February, with JWismont and coach Fireworks rounding out the staff.
RLCS Season 3 North America was less dominant than his earlier campaigns. Denial finished league play at 3–4, sixth out of eight teams, but still reached the regional championship. There, in one of the most remembered series of his playing career, Denial upset G2 Esports 4–3 in a qualification match many fans still cite as one of the biggest RLCS upsets.
Community discussion of that series often highlights a moment where Sadjunior reportedly suffered controller issues and had to finish a game on keyboard and mouse, with Denial still finding a way to win and secure their LAN spot. At the World Championship in Los Angeles, Denial mirrored his earlier results, exiting in the seventh to eighth slot and earning a modest share of the prize pool.
The months that followed were turbulent. After Denial, Zehri bounced through short stints on Lachinio’s stack, Myth Gaming, and EQuinox again before landing on FlyQuest ahead of Season 4.
FlyQuest represented both a fresh start and a last stand. With Chrome and CorruptedG he qualified through the Season 4 NA play-in, then battled through a 2–5 league record to clinch a spot in the regional championship. Official RLCS recaps list FlyQuest tied for fifth to sixth at that event, just outside the World Championship cutoff.
In the off-season the roster dropped SadJunior and reorganized under Evil Geniuses, a move noted in Psyonix’s own “Calculated” feature on EG’s new lineup. For Zehri, it marked the end of his consistent presence as a starting RLCS player.
Cloud9 And A World Championship From The Bench
Even as other teams moved on, Zehri’s understanding of rotations and pressure remained valuable. In early 2018, Cloud9’s Rocket League division brought him in as a substitute behind SquishyMuffinz, Torment, and Gimmick. Start.gg records from Season 5 league play list him on the Cloud9 roster alongside the starting trio, and Cloud9’s own history page notes that the org entered Season 5 with Kais “Sadjunior” Zehri as their new sub.
By Season 6, Cloud9 had established itself as one of the strongest teams in the world. They qualified for a third straight World Championship and, in November 2018, ran a historic lower-bracket gauntlet in Las Vegas, defeating Team Dignitas in the grand final to become RLCS Season 6 world champions.
Although he did not appear on stage in the deciding series, community lists of world champions and Liquipedia’s player records both recognize Sadjunior as Cloud9’s registered substitute for that season, granting him the distinction of RLCS world champion as a player. It was a different kind of success from his Kings of Urban and NRG days: less about being the visible star and more about serving as a practice partner and backup when the roster needed depth.
From Player To Coach
By the end of the 2010s, Zehri’s focus had shifted. His public profiles began referring to him primarily as a professional Rocket League coach rather than as an active pro, and competitive records show only a handful of player results after 2017, bringing his career prize money to just under nineteen thousand dollars across fifty-five tournaments.
Coaching roles followed in quick succession. Data compiled by Esports Charts shows him serving as a coach for multiple North American lineups starting in late 2019, including stints with Plot Twist and Jamal Jabary during the RLCS X era.
In March 2021, Oxygen Esports announced that it was moving its Rocket League program from Europe to North America and signed the Jamal Jabary roster with Zehri as coach. Golden’s team history for Oxygen notes the acquisition of Toastie, Lj., Kraziks, desi, and Sadjunior in that move, while later reporting from ShiftEsports credits him with guiding the roster to a fourteenth-place finish in the RLCS X North American standings.
After leaving Oxygen in 2022, he continued to work as a coach and analyst, culminating in an April 2023 announcement that he would lead Spacestation Gaming’s new Rocket League lineup. A 2023 feature on Spacestation describes the roster as “led by coach Kais ‘Sadjunior’ Zehri,” with Arsenal, Lj., hockser, and substitute Lethamyr competing in the RLCS 2023–24 cycle.
Interviewed during this period on Brody “Liefx” Moore’s podcast, Zehri talked explicitly about the transition from player to coach, describing how his experience in SARPBC and the early RLCS years informed his approach to teaching and how he tried to break down mechanics like the half-flip for a younger generation.
The Ultimates, Twisted Minds, And A New MENA Chapter
By 2025, Zehri’s coaching career moved beyond North America. Esports Charts lists him as coach for The Ultimates, a Saudi-backed roster that competed in the RLCS 2025 season, combining American players with MENA infrastructure. Articles on that run highlight the blend of mechanical skill and “strategic coaching and organizational guidance” behind the team’s best finishes, with his name included among the staff who helped them adapt to international play.
Later that year, Twisted Minds, one of the most ambitious MENA organizations, announced that it had hired Kais “SadJunior” Zehri as its Rocket League coach. His own social media confirmed the move, describing himself as a “coach for Twisminds” and a “Rocket League World Champion Coach.”
Coverage of Twisted Minds’ 2025 lineups emphasizes the combination of star players like trk511 and M0nkey M00n with “an experienced coach in Sadjunior,” portraying the roster as intimidating on name value alone and placing Twisted Minds near the top of MENA and global power rankings. In this role, Zehri stands not as a relic from the early RLCS days but as an active architect of one of the most dangerous modern teams.
Mechanics, Half-Flips, And A Legacy Of Teaching
There is no single mechanical clip or goal that defines Zehri the way an air dribble might define 0ver Zer0 or a double tap might define SquishyMuffinz. His influence has come more through accumulation: the years spent grinding SARPBC, the early months of Cosmic Aftershock, and the countless scrim hours as a starter and later as a substitute and coach.
In 2023, RLCS host Brody “Liefx” Moore titled an hour-long interview with him “The Half-flip’s Pioneer,” highlighting his role in popularizing one of Rocket League’s most important recovery techniques and in teaching it to newer players. Some community voices note that other pros, including Kronovi, showcased half-flips on big stages first, but they still recognize Zehri’s work in refining and explaining the move for the broader player base.
That balance between mechanical understanding and a stable, team-oriented mindset is reflected in how contemporaries and analysts have described him. ESPN once called him one of the biggest names of the early RLCS and praised the “very stable playstyle” that made him an easy fit for many lineups. Red Bull’s look at the evolving Rocket League meta placed him alongside other long-time RLCS players who moved into substitute and support roles as the game’s mechanical ceiling rose, suggesting that his greatest value was increasingly in how he read the field rather than in raw flair.
Legacy In Rocket League History
Measured purely by trophies, Kais “Sadjunior” Zehri’s playing career looks modest next to the multi-title giants of later years. He earned just under nineteen thousand dollars across four main competitive seasons, with his best finishes being North American titles in Seasons 1 and 2 and back-to-back World Championship appearances that ended in the middle of the pack.
Measured in context, his record tells a different story. He was one of the earliest SARPBC players to make the jump to Rocket League and one of the first to sign with a major sponsor on iBUYPOWER Cosmic. He helped Kings of Urban and NRG set the standard for North American play in the first two RLCS seasons, then kept adapting as the scene shifted around him.
As a coach he has already spent longer at the top than he did as a starter. From RLCS X with Oxygen to the Spacestation rosters of 2023–24 and the MENA giants of The Ultimates and Twisted Minds, Zehri has become a fixture behind the bench for teams with international ambitions.
For an Esports Legacy Profile, that breadth is the point. Kais “Sadjunior” Zehri is not just a name from the Kings of Urban era or a line in Cloud9’s Season 6 roster. He is one of the few figures who has lived through almost every stage of Rocket League’s competitive history, from unpaid PS3 tournaments to sold-out RLCS arenas and international franchised orgs, and found a way to matter in all of them.