YEKINDAR, Team Liquid’s star player and in-game leader at the BLAST Paris Major in May, doesn’t see them winning a trophy anytime soon because the squad is too young.
“I see we’re not ready to win yet,” YEKINDAR said in an interview with caster Mohan “Launders” Govindasamy during the BLAST Paris Major on the Launders Show. “We’re just a young team. You can feel that sometimes we’re not on the same page, maybe.”
Liquid had a massive recovery throughout the BLAST Paris Major. The North Americans nearly got knocked out in the Challengers Stage, but survived in the competition following victories against Fluxo, Complexity, and Grayhound. That gave them confidence and Liquid breezed past the Legends Stage with a 3-1 record, but fell flat to underdogs Apeks in the quarterfinals when everybody thought they could make a deep run.
The lineup of YEKINDAR, EliGE, NAF, oSee, and nitr0 haven’t won anything thus far, but they lost twice in grand finals, first at ESL Pro League season 16 in October 2022 and later at BLAST Premier World Final last December. Liquid’s best result in the 2023 is a semifinals run at IEM Katowice in February.
And unless Liquid win IEM Dallas on June 4, this exact lineup will not have lifted any trophies. Nitr0 revealed on March 26 that he’ll leave Liquid for the second time in his career after the conclusion of the IEM Dallas due to the grueling travel schedule and because he has a growing family to take care of. His second child was born ahead of the BLAST Paris Major while the team were preparing for the competition.
Related: CS:GO fans name 2 perfect replacements for nitr0 at Liquid
The last time Liquid as the organization won a big LAN tournament in CS:GO was at IEM Chicago in 2019. Perhaps they can take advantage of the crowd buff again and break the curse at IEM Dallas, despite YEKINDAR’s lack of optimism.
