YEKINDAR on Liquid IGL stint: "I was a young kid who wanted to win so bad that I couldn't hold my emotions back"

The Latvian rifler joined the show to speak about his move to FURIA, heaped praise on molodoy, and gave his thoughts on Spirit's reported move for tN1R.

The latest episode of HLTV Confirmed featured a guest appearance by Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis, who spoke at length with the panel about his career revival since joining FURIA.

Early conversation with the Latvian rifler touched on his captaincy on Liquid, with YEKINDAR admitting that he set a poor example for the younger players on the team.

"Honestly, I was complete ass in terms of... I don't think I was a bad IGL, and I would definitely want to be an IGL in the future — since I also saw NiKo say this, I'm going to say this as well just so people trashtalk me as well (laughs) — but I was just a terrible leader," he said.

"I was a young kid who wanted to win so bad that I could not hold my emotions back. When you have young players, like I had oSee, Patsi, and Rainwaker — Keith [NAF] is a little bit older, yeah — you have to be an example for them, and I was definitely not the example that I should have been during that time."

Talks soon moved to YEKINDAR's career revival on FURIA, with the Latvian heaping praise upon Danil "⁠molodoy⁠" Golubenko for his approach to the game and outlining what playing with him has been like compared to playing with Roland "⁠ultimate⁠" Tomkowiak on Liquid.

"I've played with many AWPers in my career, and the biggest difference with molodoy as a young AWPer is that he comes in and is not like, 'Give me the AWP, I'm going to go and kill them and do everything.' Yeah, he has those moments when he gets mad or whatever and it usually works, but he's a very supportive/rotation AWPer.

"His priority is to support his teammates first, then rotate into the right position to catch the reaction. Which is something really cool, because for example in Liquid with ultimate, he was an AWPer who was like, 'Okay, I want to do this, this, this, that,' and it was always a little bit of a hassle with him because sometimes he needs to support and let the rifles close out some of the scenarios or whatever. So that's why everything fell in the right place."

YEKINDAR added that the biggest surprise since he joined FURIA has been Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo's rifling capability, saying that while there have been glimpses of his skill in officials, the highlights and plays that the Brazilian veteran has pulled off in practices have been far better.

"I always spam, '34-year-old btw' in chat as soon as those 1v3s, 1v4s or whatever happen," he joked.

Further praise was heaped on molodoy as YEKINDAR credited the Kazakhstani player's coach and analyst on AMKAL for teaching the AWPer how to play properly, saying that FURIA got a "complete player" with only a few things to work on.

The panel then talked about the new CS update that changed the CT economy and animations, before the conversation turned to recent news, headlined by the report of Andrey "⁠tN1R⁠" Tatarinovich heading to Spirit for Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia.

"I don't know how it's going to go because tN1R is the star of the team," YEKINDAR began. "Then you join Spirit where you have sh1ro and donk... it's not easy."

Asked about whether there won't be balance on the new Spirit roster, YEKINDAR elaborated further.

"Well, he's going to get most of his positions, like for example Mirage Short, zont1x is also Short, and if you take that into account, he's going to get most of his positions," he said.

"But it's more about, chopper is always going to be dropping an AK for donk and never for tN1R, and sometimes... it's always like that, you come to a team where you have all the space to do whatever you want — maybe, I don't know how it was working in HEROIC — and then you go to a team where there are superstars that already have the space and you have to settle for a little bit less. We'll see how it goes."

More talk about Spirit, VRS issues, YaLLa's bankruptcy, and other news bookended the show, with the full episode available to watch here.