headtr1ck on NIP’s long title drought: I’m not scared about it
It was an incredibly optimistic 18-year-old Ukrainian, who we met at the media day before his debut at BLAST Premier Spring Groups.
1891 days or five years and two months.
That’s how long since Ninjas in Pyjamas won their last big trophy in CS:GO - the longest drought of any top-tier team. But that is not something that scares the Swede’s new and young AWPer Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov.
- No that does not scare me. Because it’s like giving extra motivation [for me] to give NIP more trophies and finally let them win good tournaments, and I will do my best, headtr1ck said to us in an interview and continued:
- They [NIP] are so excited, every player and coach they are excited. We have very strong aimers and I see how they want to work and how they want to play, and I think everyone is excited.
The last piece to the puzzle
headtr1ck could well end up being an angel sent from heaven for NIP as the team has lacked a permanent AWPer for quite some time after both Fredrik “REZ” Sterner and Patrick “es3tag” Hansen has taken up the important duty of handling the big green.
- I think we now have all the pieces to the puzzle. If we develop together and if we create a good game, we have very solid chances to raise trophies.
- You play for your chance to show yourself against the best players, and it’s a very good feeling finally to play against the greatest players and not only watch them play, headtr1ck said.
You can watch the entire interview with headtr1ck in the video below.
Tough debut
headtr1ck's first match for NIP was a true baptism of fire as he and the team had to square off against the CIS giants and headtr1ck's former team Natus Vincere. The Bo3 series also went in the favour of NAVI, despite a strong fight for headtr1ck who ended the match as NIP's highest-rated player.
