Chopper Discusses Team Errors in Spirit vs NAVI Match at IEM Katowice 2025
Team Spirit’s captain Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov shared his thoughts following their victory over Natus Vincere in the IEM Katowice 2025 CS2 semifinals. In an interview with HLTV.org, the player discussed match preparation, in-game communication, and the intense rivalry between the two teams.
“Going into the match, we anticipated that both we and NAVI would make numerous mistakes – this matchup is like a derby for both sides. We knew we had to ensure that lost rounds wouldn’t affect us too much; they were the best team last year, and we’re the best team now,” chopper explained.
He continued, “When two closely matched teams face off, there are always many clutch moments and disappointing situations. It’s normal. We were on the verge of tilting, but our coach and Dima ‘sh1ro’ kept saying, ‘Guys, it’s okay. That didn’t go well, I made a mistake. Sorry, we’ll win if we don’t give up.’ We tried to believe in that – that we’d win if we didn’t surrender.”
Chopper also elaborated on why Team Spirit and NAVI tend to make many mistakes when playing against each other. In his opinion, the individual skill level in both teams is so high that players are afraid of it.
“The main thing we learned [after the group stage match] is that when we play against them, both teams perform terribly in many situations. This happens because both teams are afraid of making mistakes, as any player on the server can win a round single-handedly. We watched the demos and realized we could have won last time, but we made too many mistakes in micro-situations,” he said.
Team Spirit defeated NAVI 2-0 in the IEM Katowice 2025 semifinals, advancing to the grand final where they will face Team Vitality on February 9th at 19:00 MSK.
IEM Katowice 2025 is taking place from January 29th to February 9th in Poland, with teams competing for a prize pool of one million dollars.