Cast your eyes back to Tuesday the 7th of August, 2007. A seemingly untouchable Tek-9 sit atop the GotFrag European Rankings after consecutive first place finishes at both Outpost on Fire 2 and WSVG Dallas. The Call of Duty 2 scene is at an all-time high, with fnatic announcing their intention to pick up a team and WSVG Orlando still looking possible. The likes of Serious-Gaming, Logitech.fi and eSuba are household names while once-mighty giants such as Dignitas and Speedlink begin to falter.

We now find ourselves six months on and in an entirely different but equally exciting time. Call of Duty 4 has broken sales records worldwide and is the hippest trend in online gaming, as players from a vast range of backgrounds make the switch to modern warfare. Four major events - two online, two off - have whet the collective appetite of the Call of Duty community and so we are led to the point of this article. Six months ago, GotFrag announced the ten best teams in Europe, ten giants who had proven themselves internationally time and time again. Here I will look to answer one question; where are they now?

(Note: Teams are listed in the order they were ranked last August, an updated ranking will be released in the coming weeks)

1. TEK9 Networks

Ranked the best team in the world last August, Tek-9 have had a turbulent time in Call of Duty 4 and, as usual, have courted controversy at every turn. The loss of Daniel "L-KiNG" Luther appeared a major blow to the side but in Jyri "kammYz" Högman, Tek-9 have found perhaps one of the few players in Europe that can outshine their former German star. Luther's lack of motivation was becoming a serious hindrance for the side and, although his departure appeared uneventful, it was clear things were deteriorating fast for the WSVG champions. Brief flirtations with Lee "pain" Hannah and ET star Florian "gifty" Gunzenhauser got them nowhere but in "kammYz" they have found what would appear, on first impressions, to be the perfect addition to their allstar roster.

Spurious allegations of cheating aside however, the fact remains that "kammYz" just doesn't have the LAN experience of his new teammates. Unless the Finnish star can reproduce his online form, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Tek-9 will struggle at CDC4. "kammYz" has been a revelation in the recent CoDQCup, earning his side victories over bitter rivals Speedlink and Serious in quick succession and proving that Tek-9 are back in title winning form. If said form can be maintained offline, Tek-9 will be back battling for the number one spot for many months to come.

Prediction: If kammYz delivers, Tek-9 will have no fear of dropping out of the top three.

2. Serious-Gaming

Many people would have described losing "Solz" and "rapz" as the worst thing that could happen to Serious-Gaming, but recent wins over Dignitas and oXmoze suggest there is more to this new lineup than meets the eye. Like Tek-9, Serious started slow in Call of Duty 4 but have developed into strong contenders for the European crown. An impressive performance at CDC4 will of course be needed to confirm this, but who would bet against the Dutch trio of "zemme", "Nutec" and "r1k" retaining their CPC2 title in Enschede next month?

Without wishing to write off the impact of the team's new recruits, the quality these three core players have brought to this Serious side over the past year and a half is perhaps only now becoming widely accepted. A side that was once thought to solely rely on the sniper scope of Nick "Solz" Schurink have now proved time and time again that they are simply more than the sum of their parts. This fact only makes it more of a shame they were unable to attend WSVG Dallas last Summer at a time when they were undoubtedly Europe's number one team. Hopefully if this new team can scale those same heights they won't make the same mistake.

Prediction: An easy pick for the top five for some time to come.