Gambit coach on their rise to the top: It was just a matter of time with this roster
In an interview with Pley, F_1N talks about Gambit's great success in the last 12 months.
Not many would have thought that when Gambit decided to establish a new academy team under the name of Gambit Youngsters back in April 2019, that it would end up being the very best team in the world just two years after its creation.
However, that very thing became a reality this year when the former Gambit Youngsters quartet in Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov, Sergey "Ax1Le" Rykhtorov, Timofey "interz" Yakushin, and Vladislav "nafany" Gorshkov cemented their names in the CS:GO history books, alongside the experienced Abay “Hobbit” Khasenov.
The mastermind and architect behind the powerful and talented roster is the head coach, Ivan "F_1N" Kochugov. We have sat down with the CS:GO veteran to talk about how such a young and inexperienced roster could conquer the Counter-Strike throne and what it has meant for the team.
- For me, It was just a matter of time. It required a lot of hard work and it also took a lot of time to make this roster, but that pays off now. We didn’t change our roster every month and stuff like that, so the guys have played together for more than two years, F_1N says to Pley.
It has been really tough for the roster because we did not take our vacation last year, so for the majority of the team, it has been almost two years with hard work and no vacation. In the future, we will try to not attend so many tier-1 events like this year.
Gambit’s biggest triumphs (2021)
1st IEM Katowice 2021 | $400.000
1st BLAST Premier Spring Finals | $225.000
1st IEM Summer 2021 | $100.000
2nd ESL Pro League S13 | $85.000
1st Pinnacle Cup 1 | $80.000
Since the team was promoted to Gambit’s main team in October last year, nafany and company has played no more than 260 maps throughout a myriad of tournaments in a 330-day timespan.
For comparison, the other four teams on HLTV’s world ranking (NAVI, FaZe, Virtus.pro, and G2) has played an average of 194 maps in the exact same period.
Gambit’s next task will be at ESL Pro League Season 14, where the Russian youngsters will try to seal their fifth big title in 2021 when Group D starts tomorrow. Going into EPL F_1N gives an update on the current state of the team.
- I’m not sure which shape we are in at the moment because we have been on vacation and away from CS for almost a month. Now we are just trying to get back on track and in the same shape, and we are also working on some new things that we found out we had to fix.
