s1mple on new goals: "I'd be happy with a few more Majors and one more Grand Slam"

The PGL Major Stockholm MVP doesn't plan to slow down any time soon.

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev joined the HLTV Confirmed podcast for the first time to share his thoughts and experiences in a long-form interview. The Ukrainian talked about Natus Vincere's Major run, the rivalry with Gambit, his teammates, and what his aim is after finally lifting a Major trophy.

"Maybe NAVI won't have four Majors, because it is hard to win four Majors in a row," s1mple said through a laugh. "But I'd be happy with a few more Majors and one more Intel Grand Slam. [To become] the first team to win two Grand Slams."

Regular host Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill followed up by asking about what drives the player with 17 MVP awards, and now a Major trophy, to still work so hard. "What else to do? (laughs) I enjoy it. A big motivation is LANs coming back, audience, people, the crowd."

Talking about the historic, undefeated run to the PGL Major title, s1mple says he was constantly aware of previous Majors, and how easy it is to lose them.

"It felt like we deserved it the most. Everyone was saying it was NAVI's Major, but when you play, you are always ready that the enemy team can do big damage and you can easily lose - because it is only one game. And you don't want to f*ck up this one game because you don't know when the next opportunity is going to be."

s1mple also spoke about his teammates, shedding light on the two newest additions to Natus Vincere in particular: Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy.

"B1T has so much confidence because of the system B1ad3 and NAVI made," he explained, adding that the 18-year-old takes criticism well, is calm, focused, and motivated. "As I said, he is a prodigy. It is hard to find players like him."

A lot of praise went Perfecto's way as well. "I think Perfecto is a genius. Our sports psychologist always says he is a genius. He is reading clutch situations really good." s1mple compared him with Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin in the clutch, explaining that both players gave him new ideas of how to play late-round scenarios. "Perfecto is very smart, outside of the game as well."

An unavoidable topic was NAVI Junior's star AWPer Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov. While s1mple admits that he doesn't know the youngster too well, he agrees that the 16-year-old has shown a lot of potential and could be ready for the next step.

"I'd recommend him to ask for a one-year loan move because in the future he will definitely deserve to play for NAVI’s main team, You never know what will happen in the future. Maybe someone will decide to finish his career or something like that.

"He needs to get some more experience against better teams. In his place, I'd go somewhere for a year to play and see what happens."

s1mple says that m0NESY's English could be better, and that is where a loan would help. SPUNJ questioned whether his organization would be willing to offer the services of their emerging star to another team, but s1mple was confident that NAVI would say yes as they "always help the players."

The topic of Natus Vincere's biggest rival was also touched upon in the two hour show, with s1mple being confident that Gambit are still their biggest challengers. He puts down the one-sided Major semi-final to lack of experience and Natus Vincere understanding their opponents' playstyle after facing off so many times this year. "I feel like with a bit more experience on stage they will definitely play better, like in Cologne where there was no crowd."

s1mple spoke about his rumored break after winning a Major, once again clarifying that he will surely play out at least the rest of 2021, before addressing a touchy subject for many Counter-Strike fans.

"Not right now," said about a potential switch to VALORANT. It could happen, but only "when I understand that I did a lot in this game. When I achieved a lot, and I'm slowly losing fun."

"I want to achieve a lot for this organization. I want to give space to young players so that [after I quit] other organizations cannot catch up on NAVI for three years."

Watch the whole HLTV Confirmed episode with s1mple on YouTube or listen to it in audio form on popular podcast apps.