B1ad3 on NAVI youngster: If he keeps going, he will be a different player after Katowice
The CS:GO mastermind offers his take on a "struggling" NAVI squad and why he believes you shouldn't judge npl after just one tournament.
Natus Vincere is miles away from owning and occupying the CS:GO throne.
That seems to be a fair assumption to make here at the beginning of 2023 after yet another struggling showing so far at BLAST Premier Spring Groups.
Going into the new season, NAVI revealed that Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev were to leave the team which assured the 17-year-old Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi’s spot on the renowned CIS squad. But that would not have happened if it was up to Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy, he revealed in an interview with James Banks.
- I was expecting these [struggles] because, in my plans, I still wanted to play this event with sdy and npl. I knew that if we removed sdy we will struggle with the map pool, because for a young player it's hard to play all the maps in such a short time and in new roles. I knew that it's better to still play Katowice and BLAST and then to see what we have.
B1ad3 then spoke about npl and the criticism of the teenager following his arrival to the team.
- After Abu Dhabi, there was scepticism like not a lot of players were really confident in him. But in my opinion, we must always give a chance to young players and we must not criticize and judge them from one event. It's too early for them.
At the moment, I like the dynamic of npl. If he keeps going like this, after Katowice he will be a different player. The dynamic is really good for such a young player, if we compare it to what it was in Abu Dhabi.
A rough start
We got the chance to speak with npl himself before the event, where we asked him about his first time on the team.
- It was a couple of rough matches [at BLAST Premier World Final in Abu Dhabi]. But I’m playing better and here at BLAST Spring Groups, I probably will play better because we’re working on my mistakes with b1ad3, where I’m trying to be more helpful as I said before and more experienced, npl said to us.
Question: What does it mean for you that you’re not on trial anymore and you’re not fighting for your spot with another player?
- It means a lot to me. But it doesn’t mean that I should stop progressing or something like that, in fact I need to practice more and more so I can be a better part of the team – because we haven’t known each other for so long. This time I’m getting more and more comfortable, so I just have to practice more so I can be more helpful to the team.
NA competition coming up
NAVI will play their next match at BLAST Premier Spring Groups tomorrow at 18:30 (CET). Here they are set to go up against Complexity or Evil Geniuses in the battle for a spot at BLAST Spring Finals later this year.
NAVI will play their next match at BLAST Premier Spring Groups tomorrow at 18:30 (CET). Here they are set to go up against Complexity or Evil Geniuses in the battle for a spot at BLAST Spring Finals later this year.
