S1mple Talks About the Marathon Series Against FaZe, Praises Sdy's Performance

The grand finals of the IEM Cologne 2022 between NAVI and FaZe Clan at the LANXESS Arena came to a dramatic close, as two of the best teams in the world after playing 148 rounds of intense Counter-Strike finally settled the score.

While FaZe Clan created history by becoming the first team ever to achieve the golden trio (CS:GO Major, IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne) in the same calendar year, NAVI was left disappointed losing its second grand finals to FaZe Clan this season.

Talking about the game in an interview with HLTV, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev mentioned that this was the hardest final that he has ever played, elaborating further on the key mistakes committed by the team.

He also had a few words of praise for the stand-in player, Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev, stating that "It actually feels good to have sdy in the team" and also spoke about his potential to grow into a fine tier one CS:GO player.

S1mple on the mistakes committed by NAVI that cost them the finals against FaZe Clan

The MVP (Most Valuable Player) of IEM Cologne 2022, s1mple, despite accepting that this was the hardest final that he has ever played, did point out the weak CT-sided gameplay executed by NAVI in the last two maps - Mirage and Nuke.

"It felt great until we lost the round of A when they did an execute twice in a row and just went out on A, we felt like we had this comeback," said s1mple, "It just failed on CT side I think, on Mirage and on Nuke. Especially on Nuke, we knew they were going to do this execute, but some of our players forgot we need to take main, we need to smoke door and take main, but it's only because of new spots."

S1mple praises sdy's performance with NAVI

The stand-in for NAVI, sdy, helped the team win BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2022 and reach the grand finals of IEM Cologne 2022. He seems to have won over s1mple who revealed that he actually feels good having him on the team.

Being honest, s1mple clarified that sdy certainly needs to learn a lot of things, "but he can see in his eyes that he wants it, he wants these trophies, he wants to learn more, he wants to play better."

Personally, s1mple hopes that in case this roster continues to compete together, he believes that they are going to play much better and this is what makes him happy.