Vitality player Shahar flameZ Shushan gave an interview to Players reporter Sofiia Pikhalo during media day ahead of the IEM Cologne 2025 playoffs in CS2.
So, since returning from your vacation, can you tell us about your vacation? Did you rest well?
I had a good vacation, to be honest. I went to New York after Austin, enjoyed my time there, then went back to my home and took it easy. I live in Cyprus, so it's a vacation country in some sense. There is a nice sun always on you, so I just took it easy, didn't play that much CS. I think things went well in the case that I felt like there was no stress during the playbreak, I just could have chilled. There was way more hunger coming to Cologne or to the bootcamp or starting to practise.
Do you think your team had a good reboot as well?
Yeah.
Because you had an intense season and you expect to have an intense season as well.
I think after Austin, people said like, guys, take a break, don't touch the game too much.
Touch the grass.
Yeah. Mainly it was to Ropz, because the other people are, either apEX is going on vacation there, everybody is going on vacation. But Ropz is someone who would like to grind no matter what. But even him, he went to Madeira, he has his Porsche now, enjoy his life. So for us it was just, there was an importance to not do that much things outside of just enjoying and to some extent even getting bored, not touching CS. But just getting back the hunger and the calmness around just enjoying life. So it was really important for us to not do anything and not touch the game too much. So I think all the team had equally good playbreak. Everybody went on a vacation.
It's great. Now all the team are specifically turning into match against you to stop your winning streak in tournament. Does this create additional pressure or like, easy peasy?
We don't give a f**k about the win streak. We want to do our best. If we would have lost yesterday against The MongolZ, we would have lost the win streak. But still we wouldn't give a f**k because we want to keep the tournament winning streak. We don't really care about the other things. It's something cool to have, but after you finish the tournament you don't really look at it.
Was there a team in the group stage that surprised you, how they played against you?
I think G2, on paper the players, they have good players and I expected them to do good, but I think they played quite well. They lost some key rounds on the first map and it ended 13-5, but it didn't feel like we fucked them. And the second map, it was super close and HeavyGod was playing really good. It's nice to see fellow Israeli players doing good against you, doing good in general. So I think they played quite well to a team that is very new. And other than that, what they played against us, I don't remember who we played first game even. Who did we play first game? Yeah, and Astralis.
You don't need to remember them.
I mean with Astralis, I think they also had a good run, it was quite close against us. But I think it's tough because they just came from a final of a tournament and they came from… I didn't expect them to go last place, but I think they also played quite good against us, they didn't play bad.
In the quarter-final, who do you expect to beat next, MOUZ or FURIA?
Who I expect to win?
Yes, them, after they will play against each other.
I expect MOUZ to win FURIA, but I don't expect to beat anyone. Even if we play the last rated team, last ranked team in the tournament. It's seriously so competitive that we never think it's going to be an easy match. We need to do our best, MOUZ have shown they can beat us a few times. And I think FURIA have been playing super good this year. This year, since they got YEKINDAR, I think they've improved a lot. And Molodoy, so I don't think both matches will not be easy.
