kyuubii: "gob b taught me a lot; he has a different vision of CS than I've ever seen"

The BIG Academy rifler had high praise for the German veteran.

BIG Academy arrived in Romania sporting a new roster, featuring Danes Jason "⁠JBOEN⁠" Boe Nielsen and Mikkel "⁠Maze⁠" Sparvath alongside German veteran Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik, who returned to the organization to coach the academy lineup.

The 38-year-old's presence has already made an impact on 20-year-old Can "⁠kyuubii⁠" Ali, who sang his praises after BIG Academy bounced back from a loss to ECSTATIC by eliminating HyperSpirit in the lower bracket.

"Every coach is smart in their way, but I've never seen anyone working as hard as him," kyuubii told Teodor "tedd" Borisov, who is on the ground doing commentary work for DraculaN and interviews for HLTV.

"It's something that I really appreciate as a player, and it lights some fire in myself when I see someone who is that hard-working. I don't want to put less work than him into Counter-Strike."

You can listen to the interview here.

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You just won your first game in the double-elimination bracket at DraculaN Season 2. You took down HyperSpirit in a pretty tight one, but a convincing Overpass, the same as earlier today against ECSTATIC. Talk to me about the end of the day and how you felt the games went.

First of all, it feels good to win in the playoffs here. We said everything after the group is a bonus for us, if we're going to win matches here. Our goal was to make it competitive, and in the first match against ECSTATIC we made it competitive. It was a really close match and we definitely could have won, and it's a nice sign that we are a new group, we have new young people, and we are able to show some good Counter-Strike.

In our second match, we won 2-0, and as you said, Overpass was a bit closer, but Dust2 was more convincing. It's a nice experience for us to gain some confidence, first of all, but also to enjoy the moment as well. I could definitely feel the guys are loving playing on LAN, and it's definitely a different environment. I'm looking forward to having more matches here.

You spent the first half of the year with the main BIG team, until a couple of weeks ago, and now you're on BIG Academy working with gob b and all the young guys. Do you feel like you have a lot more of a leadership role, that it's up to you to take a lot more initiative, aod that you're getting a lot more freedom in the server now?

I'm definitely taking a lot of responsibility in this team. I'm kind of a babysitter in a way, like I'm taking care of the people, especially the young guns who are really inexperienced here. I'm trying to micromanage in a way, but not in the way that people are not allowed to do anything. I'm trying to teach them what the limits are, what you can do, what you should not do, and I'm kind of... I would say, in a way, a teacher right now for them.

As you said as well, I have a lot of freedom here. I also did in the main team, but here there is definitely more. It's nice the way it is right now, I still need to get used to it since I'm talking very much, like I'm definitely, with the IGL, talking the most. I already had the experience that I died a lot of times while talking, and it's a new experience because in the main team I didn't have to talk that much because I had different people who took charge of that. Definitely new responsibilities, but I'm looking forward to mastering them.

Now that you look back on your time on BIG, it hasn't been that long, but you have had some time to think about what happened on the main team. What are the main lessons that you're coming out of that experience with?

The biggest lessons I learned from the main team over time was to focus on yourself, not on the enemies. It doesn't matter who you play against, it's just important that you play your game because at the end of the day, 95% of the games you play, you lose against yourself, not against the enemy because they're playing better.

It happens rarely, but from my experience, we're losing because we're not showing our S-game, and I would say it was kind of the same thing against ECSTATIC. We definitely could have won, but we didn't play our S-game so we didn't. That is a big lesson I learned, to look at yourself, and for example if you do anti-strat, don't put too much effort on the enemies and put more effort on yourself.

One quote my old IGL, tabseN, liked to use is, 'Every round is winnable,' and you could actually see in this best-of-three against ECSTATIC that we won a lot of 3v5s, 2v5s, almost impossible rounds where you almost say, 'Okay, you can save if you don't get a kill,' but then you somehow get a glimpse that maybe you can win the round. Then we made the impossible, possible, and those are the two biggest lessons I learned in the main team.

You aren't here alone in terms of people with experience. You have gob b right behind you as the coach, so how is the dynamic? What are the most important things that he's bringing to the table, what is the feeling of having him by your side in that type of newer and younger project?

He has a completely different vision of Counter-Strike than I've ever seen. Compared to every other coach I've worked with, he's like... I mean, every coach is smart in their way, but I've never seen anyone working as hard as him. Even when practice is over, he's spending like 4-5 more hours on the server, always messaging me, 'Hey, do you time to go on the server, I want to show you new nades, tactics,' or whatever.

It's something that I really appreciate as a player, and it lights some fire in myself when I see someone who is that hard-working. I don't want to put less work than him into Counter-Strike. He taught me and the boys a lot of things that a lot of different coaches would never have because he just has a different vision of Counter-Strike.

It's kind of a meme in German Counter-Strike scene, but his quote is like, 'If I go in the deathmatch server with you for 10 minutes, then I'm going to be able to make you a better individual player because I can tell you what your weaknesses and strengths are with aiming.'

I did it with him and, to be honest, it's actually true. I noticed that I'm feeling way more comfortable with my individual skill now, and it's so fascinating to see that there is a different way you can think of Counter-Strike. He definitely brings a lot to the team, it's a new air and new environment as well, and this is always nice to have in a team.