NAVI head coach Andrii B1ad3 Gorodenskiy gave a post-match interview to Players reporter Sofia Pikhalo after defeating MOUZ in the match for the grand final of IEM Cologne 2024.
What went wrong in the Mirage and Inferno attacks?
On Inferno, we didn't control the banana behind the T-side very well. We were very confused in the mid-round.
We lacked a good solution, a clear, effective, fast one, so that they couldn’t regroup. And on Mirage, we were in a big hurry after we had control of the map, at the moments when we found entries. We were in a hurry and didn't have one idea for the whole team.
Earlier it was reported that you were quite surprised that MOUZ picked Inferno. Why do you think they chose this particular map?
I was very surprised, because they rarely... I don't even remember the last time they picked this map. This is the first factor.
The second factor. It’s a map that isn’t very effective to pick. Only if your opponent has a very bad Inferno, you can choose it. And thirdly, they didn't play it in this tournament, it's very difficult. It doesn't even matter what you've trained before.
The last time they played this map was probably in Riyadh. It doesn't matter what you coached here on stage. This is not the moment when you need to pick this map for the first time.
But they were close, I can say, nice try.
Were Aleksi's clutches and the taken eco round a key factor in the victory? Or did all the players do their best?
I think that if you take Mirage, because Inferno was also important, we finished Inferno together.
And on Mirage, I think we were a little bit lucky that they couldn't do the same thing that we had to do on Inferno for the T-side. It was before the additional rounds. They couldn't do it on Mirage for T because they gave away the eco round.
Two clutches, I think, is a little bit of a different story. Clutches in such matches are the norm. For example, they win two clutches. Then we will say in interviews that “oh, we lost two clutches, what if we had won them?”. This is Counter-Strike. Let's just say it's Counter-Strike, where there is no room for error.
I saw that you were very active behind the players' backs. Were you worried about their performance, taking into account the high winrate that you have on Mirage, more than 90%, that you might lose this map?
That we would lose the winstreak? Well, no. I didn't think about it during the match, but it happened once. On the T-side, when the score was 5-1. We joked that if we lost the match, we would win the Mirage. It would be good news that at least we had a good winning streak.
But here it was the other way around. I thought about it a little bit. But I wasn't worried that we would lose. To be honest, then there was Ancient as well.
It turns out that Aleksi's clutches are proof that statistics don't play in CS. Individually, he was 1-11 at first, then he was able to turn the game into a win.
Yeah, yeah. You know, in general, when we started playing badly for T on Mirage, it felt like we just couldn't play our game a little bit. We were a little bit nervous and so on. He couldn't find his game, we were making mistakes.
There was also a little bit of a bump on stage in terms of communication. We couldn't hear everything as clearly as in practice, for example. And his clutches, yeah, they prove that it's... I think it's a personal thing, because it depends on the player.
Because someone can just go on like that and do nothing. And Aleksi was very good at staying in focus. In both clutches, he was focused. We could see that he knew what he was doing.