Nicolas “nitr0” Cannella represented the “Liquid” team from 2015 to 2020. At that time, there followed a two-year break, trying his hand elsewhere, but a year ago he returned to the “Liquid” team, with which he won 11 major tournament trophies and reached the semi-finals of the “Major” three times. Cannella is the team’s captain or the so-called “in-game-leader”, that is, the player who determines the team’s tactics during the game.
For several months, the “Liquid” team has also been represented by the Latvian player Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis, and foreign media have repeatedly mentioned that “YEKINDAR” has significantly changed the team’s tactical schemes and internal communication, but as Mareks himself stated in the interview, he does not determine the tactics during the game. . The Sportacentrs.com portal managed to invite “nitrO” for a short conversation after the conclusion of the Katowice “Masters” tournament, where “Liquid” remained tied for third place, who agreed to share his opinion about his new teammate from Latvia.
“He has completely changed the dynamics of the team,” the 27-year-old US esports player immediately admitted. “Everything he learned in his previous teams, he brings to us now. YEKINDAR shared his experience and we evaluated what we can use to improve our game. I’d say it’s still a work in progress. Yeah, gone, it seems , 7-8 months since he joined the team, but we still have to wait for us to reach our highest level when we can triumph in big tournaments. But I think we are on the right track and as long as we continue to understand each other, we will keep on of this road.”
“Marek definitely has the star factor,” said “nitr0,” who has earned more than a million dollars in prize money in his seven-year esports career, ranking 21st in CS:GO competition history. “I like that he takes the initiative himself, he says what he wants to do. It’s very nice for me as the captain of the team to have a player like that. When you’re coaching players, sometimes it’s difficult to get everyone to come together and be on the same page, but in our team, all players offer their ideas to each other, which helps to arrive at the right conclusions as a whole.”
“It seems very cool to me,” smiled “nitr0” about the fact that the leader of the strongest team in the USA is currently a player from Latvia. “Latvia has two very high-level players – “YEKINDAR” and “broky” (Helvijs Saukants). Latvia is a very small country, therefore it is impressive that you have two such strong players, and we are only happy that one of them represent their country on our team in America.”
Transitions from the so-called Eastern Bloc to the West in CS:GO teams are not that frequent, because mutual communication and quite simply knowledge of the language are very important in the game. “YEKINDAR” is an excellent example in this regard, because he knows both Russian and English, and the captain of his new team stated that he was also pleasantly surprised by Marek in this regard.
“He speaks excellent English, very fluent,” said “nitr0”. “There are no topics where he lacks vocabulary, we haven’t had any communication problems, and in terms of language, I personally feel that Marek speaks English almost like his mother tongue.”
