donk: "It's stupid to not rate hally as a great coach"

Spirit's phenom came to the defense of his coach, who has faced public criticism ever since his return to the team.

Spirit survived at the Esports World Cup after staving off elimination at the hands of BIG by the skin of their teeth, bringing back the series from a map down and a 5-10 deficit on map two.

After the match, we had the opportunity to ask Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets about the difficult affair and what went wrong before Spirit found their way back into the match.

"I think we deserved to lose in this best-of-three, to be honest. Cache was just a pure outclass from them," he said about the opening map loss, where Spirit could only muster two rounds on the defense. "They were really well-prepared on that map."

"On Dust2, it was a 50/50 half before gr1ks won the 1v3. And after, he did a quadra in the pistol round as T side, so you will get the score like 5-10," he went on. "I can't say the score was fair because we lost the two pistol rounds."

Spirit 's issues at this event spanned past this matchup, however. They lost the opening best-of-one to JiJieHao and had to fight through overtime against Luminosity , before barely scraping through the playoffs.

donk was not willing to say why the team has struggled. "We know our problems, and we are trying everything, the best that we can, to fix them. We have some issues that you cannot fix, like in one day or two days. We need some time to fix it, and I think we'll fix them before playoffs."

At the end of the interview, we asked the 19-year-old about Sergey "⁠hally⁠" Shavaev , who has faced severe public criticism since his return to the team. He came to the defense of his coach in response: "This is CS, and if you lose, you will be hated. If you win, you will be loved.

"It's stupid to not rate hally as a great coach. Before the lineup changed, he qualified to the semi-finals and quarter-final at a Major. So even without me, they were a top five team in the world at their peak. And he's a solid coach, and I think it's clear for everyone who knows CS."

At one moment it was looking like you were going to get eliminated on the second map. So tell me what the issues were and how you brought it back.

I think we deserved to lose in this best-of-three, to be honest. Cache, it was just a pure outclass from them. They were really well-prepared that map, and we weren't ready like them.

About Dust2, I can't say something special because we lost a pistol, we lost a couple of gun rounds, but it was a 50/50 half before gr1ks won 1v3. And after he won, he did a quadra in the pistol round as T side, so you will get the score, like, 5-10 or 5-11. Also we lost the first gun round at CT side, and it has to be a 5-11 score, but we won an eco round. We were ready for their moves and we just needed to shoot heads and beat them.

I can't say that score was fair because we just lost the two pistol rounds. We won a force at T side, but still, pistol round on MR12, it's three rounds and it's a lot. So I can't say it's a fair score, and that's it.

You had a little moment with gr1ks after the game when you guys shook hands. What was that about?

Just nothing special. I respect this guy and I like him as a person, and I like how he improves and how he upgraded because we had some talks about his career and one-on-one dialogues. And I was telling him that he will have a bright future, and now he shows himself at the tier one, tier two, and that's it.

Can you tell me about Spirit's performance at this tournament overall? You started out the event with the best-of-one loss to JiJieHao, which I think surprised a lot of people. Then quite a difficult Dust2 against Luminosity as well. It seems quite shaky from Spirit.

I don't want to tell about the issues that we are facing currently because it might give our opponents an advantage. I just don't want to do it. But we know our problems, and we are trying everything, the best that we can, to fix them. We have some issues that you cannot fix, like in one day or two days. We need some time to fix it, and I think we'll fix them before playoffs.

The public perception [of Spirit's results] has been shifting very heavily towards hally since he came back into the team. Everybody was making quite a big deal about what the results were when you had S0tF1k and that hally is now back in charge. Do you think this is a fair assessment of the team from the outside and how it's performing, that it's down to the staff behind and some of the changes that have happened? Or what do you think about that?

To be honest, I think that people will always talk and hate someone, anyone. If you win, they will, how do you say it, pray on this guy. If you lose, they will hate him so much. This is CS, and if you lose, you will be hated. If you win, you will be loved. And basically that's it. I think we don't need to pay attention to this because it's just the media stuff. We don't need to prove something.

It's stupid to not rate hally as a great coach. Before the lineup changed, he qualified to the semi-finals and quarter-final at a Major. So even without me, they were a top five team in the world at their peak. And he's a solid coach, and I think it's clear for everyone who knows CS.