donk: "To make up for [Cologne] we need to play on a decent level four or five more events"

The young Russian shared his thoughts after securing his fourth MVP of the year.

After a dreadful campaign at IEM Cologne 2024, which saw Spirit exit from the main event in last place following losses to The MongolZ and G2, the Russian side have bounced back with a tournament victory at BetBoom Dacha Season 2, hoisting the trophy after a 3-0 win over Eternal Fire in the grand final.

Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov's men displayed a dominant run of form throughout the event, dropping just one map to fellow tournament favorite MOUZ, spearheaded by spectacular showings from Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets and Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov, with the former player securing the event MVP thanks to his 1.48 average rating in Belgrade.

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donk wins his fourth MVP of 2024 at BB Dacha Belgrade S2

Shortly after his team's victory at BetBoom Dacha Season 2, donk spoke with HLTV regarding his feelings after the event win and claiming the MVP, his thoughts on Spirit's lackluster IEM Cologne run, and how the team will be looking to make up for that early exit.

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This interview was conducted in Russian and later translated by Russian-speaking HLTV staff.

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Congratulations on the victory and another MVP! How does it make you feel?

Thanks. I don't really feel anything from getting an MVP, it's more about us winning and becoming champions as a team. Of course, it's nice to get an MVP, but winning as a team is more important for me. But it's splendid, there are no bad feelings when you win!

With that MVP and your strong individual performance, you strengthened your claim for #1 in the world. What do you think about that? Are you interested in the race you have with m0NESY and ZywOo?

Well, it wouldn't be bad to be the best player in the world, but I understand that in order to achieve that you need to perform well as a team, above everything. Poor team results won't allow you to be the best player, it's impossible. I'm more focused not on being the best player in the world but on performing well as a team and enjoying playing with each other. But I try not to think and pay attention to that, I just want to enjoy playing with these guys.

Does this result help your team rehabilitate yourself a little after Cologne and show that you’re ready to win events?

To some extent, yes. We've managed to defeat MOUZ, who beat us last time and against whom we couldn't win for quite some time. It's nice, it definitely strengthened our morale.

But it’s hard to say that it rehabilitates us from that result. Cologne happens once a year, and it's a very prestigious tournament. To make up for a loss like that we need to play on a decent level four or five more events. Winning this event is cool, but I'm still disappointed about Cologne.

Disappointing Cologne result – how does it compare with Major loss? What stung more?

I don't think we really failed at the Major, we lost to FaZe who went on to reach the final. It was still a good opponent. It might have even been that we lost the match that was supposed to be ours, but we're a young team and that's normal to lose. It was our second event after Katowice, so I don't make a big deal out of it. Yes, it stung, we could have won and who knows how it could have gone from there, but overall that's fine, it's an okay result.

Obviously, I took the Cologne result much closer to heart than our defeat at the Major, because there we didn't show even 5% of what we're capable of and that's very sad.

What did the team work on to improve your game after Cologne to not allow this again?

We didn't have issues in terms of our play in Cologne, to be honest. The only problem we had was that we couldn't show [our game]. We couldn't just play what we practiced and that was the main problem. We were focusing more on our internal problems and what was happening inside the team.

Did you personally feel any pressure to show a good game here? Considering you needed to show that you worked on your mistakes and the event was also not as competitive.

Obviously, it's not as competitive as tier one events, but it's still a good event to start gaining form. Here we have MOUZ and other teams that you need to take seriously and that can put up a fight.

I didn't really feel any pressure personally, neither did the team, I think. We just wanted to show our game and what we're capable of, and our main goal is just to improve from match to match and enjoy the game with each other. Overall, no pressure, just wanted to play well.