flusha on playing with autimatic and suNny: "It’s probably not going to happen"

The three-time Major champion explained why he stepped down from fnatic earlier this year, and discussed his future plans in the latest episode of 'HLTV Confirmed'.

Earlier this month, Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist stepped down from fnatic for the third time in his career, less than 18 months after he and Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim had rejoined the team. The 27-year-old, who was replaced by Jack "⁠Jackinho⁠" Ström Mattsson in the Swedish squad, helped them to win DreamHack Masters Malmö in October 2019 and ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe in April 2020 in his most recent tenure.

The 27-year-old appeared on Monday as a guest in the ‘HLTV Confirmed’ podcast and explained the reason behind his departure from fnatic's active lineup this time.

"I really want to be an in-game leader for the rest of my career," flusha said. He revealed that when fnatic came knocking in 2019, he was supposed to become the skipper, but when moves for Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson and Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner failed to materialise, the team turned to Golden, who had led the squad to victory in 2018 at IEM Katowice and at the WESG World Finals.

Even though flusha wasn't calling, he said that everything was fine while they were still finishing top four in every tournament. They had consistent results at the beginning of their journey and most notably won DreamHack Masters Malmö in October, just three weeks after the team was officially announced.

The ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe was the only tournament that fnatic won in 2020. They reached the semi-finals of IEM Katowice in March, the only big LAN event of the year, and finished third in Flashpoint 2, in December. It was after they lost to Virtus.pro in the semi-finals of the $1 million league that flusha informed the organisation that he wanted to leave, although he had also considered the move in mid-2020 after some mixed results.

One day before his official benching, a report from DBLTAP revealed that flusha, Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta, and Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi had approached several organisations to potentially create a new team. The Swede hailed his former Cloud9 teammate as "the perfect person" to have in a team and said that he shares the same mentality as the ENCE player when it comes to the game.

"The rumors were true, but this is probably not going to happen anymore," flusha said. "We had five players interested and willing to do this if we had an organisation that could make it happen, but I think that in this state of CS:GO, organisations are really hesitant to either buy a lot of players and maybe let their team go if they have one, or just buy into CS:GO.

"We didn't have a lot of interest from organisations that were already established. There were people who wanted to create something around us, but we really wanted to go to a place that was already established."

The 27-year-old also revealed that he was approached by FaZe many times in the past, including before Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač was signed from mousesports in early 2017.

"I never felt that I would get to be the in-game leader that I want to be in FaZe, especially with NiKo on the team," he explained. "I think it would be hard for me to just come in and demand respect."

For now, flusha doesn't have a plan. The veteran is fine to just sit around and wait for offers as he wants to make the best decision for his career. He doesn't rule out the possibility of teaming up with other Swedish players and helping to develop young talents.

"I think there is a lot of talent in Sweden, you can't really see it now because the Swedes have this personality trait that everyone wants to be a superstar and teams can't really work if all five players want to do the same things," he explained. "If I wanted to stay locally and develop Swedish players, I think it wouldn't be a really good team, but I think I could improve them and we could become a farm team. Help the Swedish scene in that way."

You can access the full VOD of Monday's episode of 'HLTV Confirmed' below.