Pimp on NEO joining Astralis: “Maybe they just need a father figure of sorts.”
Analyst Jakob “Pimp” Winneke spoke in the latest episode of the Counter-Points podcast about the appointment of Filip “NEO” Kubski as Astralis’ head coach, assessed the prospects for the team’s revamped coaching staff, and shared his thoughts on the role of coaches in the professional Counter-Strike 2 scene.
On NEO’s appointment at Astralis
Astralis is always an interesting case for me, of course. They didn’t make any changes to the roster, but they did change the coaching staff. They brought in NEO. And I’m happy about this for one reason: I never really saw NEO as a coach in the full sense of the word. I’m sure he’s done a lot of coaching work. I’m sure he has coaching abilities. But the old FaZe Clan looked like they were just continuing to play the same way and hoping that the players’ individual skill would carry them through. It never seemed like a team with a clear vision.
On the Astralis roster
If we go through the roster: device plays decently with the AWP—he has good matches and bad ones, and at times he lacks consistency. Staehr is the only real star on this roster. I think he’ll be the hardest player for them to keep if the team doesn’t start playing better and doesn’t improve. Because, in my opinion, Staehr is good enough to play for a much stronger team. For example, Staehr at G2 Esports doesn’t seem like such a far-fetched idea. Or, at the very least, on a team of that caliber.
But the coaching change interests me specifically from the perspective of Astralis as a whole. ruggah never managed to unlock this team’s potential. He tried his best, but if you look at the last few years, he essentially failed to achieve any significant results with any team. Now NEO is coming in, and I’m curious to see what kind of coach he actually is. Is he just someone who agrees with everyone? A positive guy who fosters a good atmosphere, makes sure everyone’s okay, and serves as a mature presence on a young team? That could also be part of his role. We know that HooXi is very emotional—he might slam his fist on the table and so on. Ryu is still pretty young—and so on. So maybe they just need a father figure of sorts.
On the current role of coaches and gla1ve
It seems to me that a lot of coaches these days got their jobs because of what they achieved earlier as players. Now I’m going to talk a little bit about my all-time favorite captain. For me, gla1ve is the same kind of case. I don’t know if gla1ve will turn out to be a great coach. But I’m willing to bet that he got this job precisely because he’s gla1ve. Maybe he’ll actually turn out to be a great coach. Perhaps he’ll be able to bring everything he did as a captain to his coaching role. For 100 Thieves, this is a definite risk, and I understand why they decided to take it. But I’m not going to automatically count gla1ve among the good coaches just because he was an outstanding player. I’ll judge him the same way I judge everyone else.
Earlier on the Counter-Points podcast, Jacob “Pimp” Winneke criticized G2 Esports’ decision to sign Artem “r1nkle” Moroz instead of Álvaro “SunPayus” García, and also assessed the prospects of the team’s revamped roster.
Photo by Fraglíder.
