s1mple: I still believe that because of the war our team just crashed
In a roundtable interview at BLAST World Finals, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev gave insights into how affected his team has been by the war.
NAVI was on the top of the world in 2021 winning everything at the end of the year including last season's BLAST World Finals. After another trophy was lifted, we asked Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev about what would be the biggest danger for NAVI in 2022.
Neither he nor us for that sake could have imagined the horror of what happened in Ukraine with Russia's invasion just a few months later.
Now another season is coming to an end. When asked about what the team needs to improve in 2023, the Ukrainian turned the conversation toward the struggles, that the team has faced after the invasion started.
- I still believe that because of the war our team just crashed. It was only because of the war. We lost our first LAN event at Katowice where the war started two days before. It’s pretty sad, that when you are trying to create an era and winning a lot. And then it is not because we kicked a player or something happened in the team, but because war happened in this world. And when you think about this you say, why? Why did this happen to us?
Q: You talk about how the war broke the moment when you were trying to build an era. Do you think now, that in the situation you are in going into 2023, you can find the path back to where you were?
- Yes. I think so. I just think we need to practice as much as possible. The last year we only had two bootcamps for 10 days. In 2021 we had five or six bootcamps with two weeks. It’s a totally different preparation for all tournaments, s1mple told the press at the roundtable press conference in Abu Dhabi.
NAVI and s1mple will face Team Vitality tomorrow at BLAST Premier World Finals.
You can hear the full press conference with s1mple here.
