Collapse Talks About The Difficulties He Had in Convincing His Dad Before Joining Team Spirit

While The International 2022 (TI11) is kicking off with the Last Chance Qualifiers, other teams that have directly qualified for the Group Stages of TI11 are currently using the extra time to boot camp or strategize for the weekend. Being defending champions, Team Spirit had pre-recorded a series of videos for its fans before its title defense at Singapore.

After releasing its first two episodes featuring Illya "Yatoro" Mulyarchuk and Miroslaw "Mira" Kolpakov, Team Spirit have now released its third episode featuring offlaner Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov.

Collapse revealed that he applied for university before joining Team Spirit

The video started off with Magomed "Collapse" Khalilov talking about his vacation after the PGL Arlington Major, which he and his team won after a decent Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) season. He revealed that he went back to his hometown in Dagestan before spending a short time at Minsk.

“It was great, I went to Dagestan and Minsk and had a good rest. I did all the things I planned to do on vacation, I helped my parents and spent a good time with friends, it was cool. I was actually happy to come home cause I haven’t seen my people, friends, and parents for a long time, and they were all happy too,” said Collapse.

He also revealed that he grew up having to watch and learn martial arts as a tradition in his hometown before he took a lesson in folk dancing.

“I'm not really sure about that cause it's different now. There's more variety, and it depends more on what a child is into, but still, there's nothing wrong with taking your boy to martial arts. I went to hand-to-hand fighting for a year, then I also went to judo for half a year or a year, and that was enough for me. I don’t watch martial arts at all nowadays. It’s not interesting to me at all. At most, I watch street fighting videos on YouTube and that's it. When it comes to dancing, from 1st to 3rd grade, I went to a school where I took choreography classes, and I was taught to dance lezginka [folk dance] there. Well, I know how to dance it, but it’s not that beautiful,” said Collapse.

The host then asked Collapse about the start of his esports career, as Collapse had previously applied to a medical university.. He also revealed his struggles to convince his parents when he got approached by Korb3n to join Yellow Submarine in 2020.

Collapse responded by saying, “Last August, when I was invited to Team Spirit, I was applying for the University. When all the documents were ready, Korb3n invited me to the team. Surely, I was happy and told my dad about it. As my dad’s a hot-tempered person, he didn't take it seriously and said, ‘You don't need it, better get an education, become a doctor, it’s more important than playing games,’” .

Collapse has also said that he and his dad were invited to Moscow by Korb3n to convince his dad to allow him pursue his Dota 2 career.

“Korb3n allowed me to invite my dad to Moscow for a meeting so that he could see how it all works and could ask all the questions. My dad agreed, and we went to Moscow and had a talk. They managed to convince my dad that it was a big deal, they explained to him how it all works, that it's a professional career, and that I have some prospects and a talent for it. After we came back from that interview, he told me that if we hadn't gone to Moscow, he would have hardly let me go. They were really able to convince him,” he said.

Finally, the host asked Collapse about the team’s relocation to Serbia when the Ukraine-Russia conflict first started.

“I thought a lot about it, but I wasn’t against it. It was a new city, and I was interested in how it’d go and look. It was always interesting to live somewhere beyond Russia, so I accepted this fact with enthusiasm”

However, he also revealed that his teammate Miroslaw "Mira" Kolpakov had a tough situation when the conflict first broke out, leading him to miss out on GAMERS GALAXY: Invitational Series Dubai 2022.

“Mira wasn’t around when it happened. I texted him, asking how he was doing, where he was, and all that. He answered that it was okay. I was with Yatoro and saw how stressed he was. I tried to support him, and asked about his feelings, and so did the whole bootcamp staff. I think he wasn't engaged in the game at all. You could tell by him that he wasn't doing his best, it distracted him during the game. He was thinking about it all the time, he was very depressed” said Collapse.

As of now, Collapse and Team Spirit are currently waiting for the Last Chance Qualifiers to be concluded as the team will be playing in the Group Stages of TI11, which will begin this weekend on 15th October.