NIP to continue to field LNZ in ESL Pro League Season 14

The Swedish team has given the youngster more time to keep improving and cement his place in the lineup.

Linus "⁠LNZ⁠" Holtäng will remain in Ninjas in Pyjamas's active roster for the upcoming ESL Pro League Season 14, the organization has confirmed to HLTV.org. The 18-year-old had originally been given until the end of the first part of the 2021 season to prove himself after being brought up from Young Ninjas to the main team in June as a replacement for Erik "⁠ztr⁠" Gustafsson.

NIP's COO, Jonas Gundersen, praised the talent and self-awareness LNZ has shown so far since he joined the main squad two and a half months ago, while also acknowledging that the 18-year-old still has a lot of room to grow.

"[LNZ] definitely adds firepower and is tactically a very smart player," Gundersen told HLTV.org. "Obviously he needs to evolve and become a lot better, adding more LAN experience to remove the nerves there for example, but this is all expected with younger players."

"Overall, I'd say that what we see is an incredibly high starting point, with a player that we feel has a lot more to give and shows tremendous talent, especially given his own self-awareness and understanding of what he needs to work at and how hard."

When talking about LNZ's future with the main team, the COO went on to share that if he and the team continue to showcase an upwards trajectory, the youngster will keep his spot "for many more tournaments."

"As with all youngsters given a shot either on NIP or Young Ninjas, I genuinely hope that they do whatever they can to cement their position, and this situation is no different," Gundersen explained. "My job is to always be objective in this, and so far we are showing some great signs of improvement across the board in the team, and I am thoroughly rooting for Linus to keep individually improving to make his dream come true. If it keeps going like this, I'm sure he'll be around for many more tournaments."

Gundersen also stressed that it's not the team's goal to keep rotating players, sharing a little bit of the thought process behind the concept they have employed since February, when they first promoted one of their academy players to the main roster in ztr:

"Contrary to popular belief, the idea with finding new talents this way is not to constantly cycle new players in all the time. The concept here is to find 5 core players instead of 4, and doing it this way means we can explore what 6, 7 and 8 core players potentially looks like in the future, with a lot more of a flexible and inclusive model together with the players."

Ninjas in Pyjamas are set to kick off their campaign in the $750,000 competition on September 1. The Swedish-Danish squad are the second-highest-ranked side of Group D, which also features Liquid, TeamOne, Entropiq, Gambit, and FURIA.

The event will be LNZ's sixth with the main team. He has averaged a 0.93 rating across the previous five, with the BLAST Premier Spring Final standing out as his best individually thus far, as the 18-year-old was Ninjas in Pyjamas's second-highest-rated player there (1.07 across nine maps).

Ninjas in Pyjamas's lineup will continue to field the following roster in ESL Pro League Season 14:

Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner
Nicolas "⁠Plopski⁠" Gonzalez Zamora
Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser
Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz
Linus "⁠LNZ⁠" Holtäng

Björn "⁠THREAT⁠" Pers (coach)