NAVI coach jokes ‘3-0 teams don’t win Majors’ in Cologne

Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy, coach of Natus Vincere, made the remark after his team lost to Spirit on day one and beat Legacy on day two to sit 1-1 in their pool at the IEM Cologne Major.

Gorodenskiy blamed rust from nearly a month without official matches for the poor opening performance. He said the break made it difficult to put the team’s system into practice: ‘for our system and for our team, … without playing, it’s hard to implement all the stuff.’ The coach added that the team’s goal for the day against Legacy was to ‘wake up’ and activate their potential.

He pointed to specific failures in the Spirit match, including losing rounds NAVI would normally close and dropping a number of 3v5 and 2v5 situations. The team also failed to convert entries on Dust2, which Gorodenskiy attributed to diminished game feeling and reduced confidence after the layoff.

Gorodenskiy said Spirit arrived with momentum from earlier stage play and delivered consistent executions. He described their approach as straightforward Counter-Strike but with higher execution and cited Donk’s form as a factor that made in-server preparation harder.

Against Legacy, NAVI improved on vocal leadership, micro plans and overall activation. Gorodenskiy highlighted the lineup’s experience and its ability to diagnose losses: ‘we are not delusional, we can understand what we need to fix.’ He also expressed confidence that the team will strengthen with more matches: ‘we are the kind of team that will play better and better with each game; the more games we play, the better we will be.’

NAVI still needs two best-of-three wins to reach the playoff bracket in Cologne. Since the Swiss stage was introduced at Majors, four teams have gone 3-0 in the early rounds and gone on to win the tournament: Gambit at PGL Major Krakow 2017, Astralis at IEM Katowice Major 2019, NAVI at PGL Major Stockholm 2021, and Vitality at BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023.

When asked about teammate Aleksi ‘Aleksib’ Virolainen’s comment that the first two days of Stage 3 would indicate favorites, Gorodenskiy returned to his quip and laughed that they ‘don’t want to be 3-0,’ underlining the unpredictable nature of the Swiss format.