k0nfig ready to return: "Everything I worked for disappeared, but I'm here to take it back"

The Danish rifler announced his desire to come back to competition after a month on the sidelines.

Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke expressed his intention to return to competitive play by publishing a TwitLonger on Friday. The announcement was accompanied by an interview that the player had with Dexerto, in which he expanded on his personal recovery over the last month and his aim to come back on the server.

Astralis parted ways with the 25-year-old rifler just last month due to "personal circumstances." The news came shortly after the team's failure to qualify for the IEM Rio Major from the European RMR, a tournament that k0nfig did not attend as an ankle injury caused him to miss the event.

k0nfig confirmed reports of a physical dispute with a bar representative during the team's time in Malta between the end of ESL Pro League season 16 and the European RMR event. The player expressed his regret over the situation and announced his desire to improve his behavior in the future.

"Everything that I had worked hard for disappeared from one day to the other, but I am here to take it all back," read k0nfig's statement. "I’m here to compete. I’m here for the team. I’m here for the beauty of the game we all love and live for. I’m going to show who k0nfig really is. My confidence is here and it’s here to hoist trophies," it continued.

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k0nfig and Astralis part ways

The 25-year-old expanded on his current situation and his future goals in an interview with Dexerto. When talking about Astralis' decision to release him he confessed his surprise at the time: "I was a little bit surprised, to be honest."

"I really wanted to be part of the team after I got some help and my foot was healed. But I also understand their decision to let me go because it’s hard for me to get back into a team after I let them down like that, before the Major qualifier."

He also expressed his belief that the decision to terminate his contract stemmed from the organization and not his teammates: "I definitely believe that the decision was made by the organization. I don’t think it was made by the players."

k0nfig also touched on the situation created by the roles in the old Astralis lineup. The rifler stated that in his opinion, there were too many passive players and that it often resulted in him trying to take the initiative: "We had too many defensive players, so I had to do something aggressive all the time. And of course, our AWPers had a hard time, Farlig and also Lucky."

"I felt like when I had bad games, opponents were just shutting me down to avoid me getting into good situations. And the rest of the team was a little bit too passive for me to get into good positions. So when I got shut down in games, it felt like it was just a passive team."

The 25-year-old also said that he has been in contact with a few organizations to make a return, but that nothing is finalized as he'd prefer to wait for the right fit: "I want to be part of a well-built team where I feel like I belong, with five players who are dynamic together."

"I feel like I have not yet become the player I want to be. Of course, being in the top 20 HLTV player ranking again would be really nice individually, but I also want to prove that I can improve teams and make them a better unit. I want to win tournaments, so there’s a lot that I want to achieve," k0nfig concluded.