NAF on Liquid: "The team was essentially European already"

Prior to the start of IEM Cologne, Team Liquid was officially designated as a European team following a recent rules change.

But as Keith "NAF" Markovic told Dust2.dk's Emil "mad0" Funke on behalf of Dust2.us,, the team has pretty much been primarily European for a number of years now.

NAF also commented on the addition of coach Viktor "flashie" Tamás Bea, and addressed some comments he made in the wake of the team's Major elimination and his slow start to 2025.

The complete interview transcription can be found below. The questions and answers have been slightly edited for clarity and length.

How do you feel about today’s match?

It went fairly well. Won the pistol on Mirage, started out strong. They came back and got some rounds, but we managed to even it up 6-6. T-side on Mirage can be pretty tough sometimes, so a lot of us were pretty confident as long as we go in and win the pistol round. And we pretty much had all the reads on our CT-side on what our opponent was going to do.

Dust2 is a map we maybe we didn’t put too much time into and they ended up picking it. But at the end of the day we were still able to get the win. [On] CT-side we were really strong and had a lot of really good reads again. [On] T-side they came back a little bit, I kind of messed up in one clutch where we could have closed the game earlier, but overall we played really well.

With the new VRS changes you’re now considered a European team. How do you feel about that change?

Honestly for the past three years or so I’ve spent a lot of time in Europe. I’ve not really been that much to North America or Canada. It doesn’t really bother me. Of course I understand that some fans are maybe upset that it’s not really the true North American way for Liquid anymore, but a lot of the players that have come to Liquid have been European and I spend a lot of time in Europe anyways. The team was essentially European already.

At the Major you mentioned difficulty finding spots and space for yourself with NertZ and siuhy on the team. Is that something Liquid has worked on to address?

I think I may have said some regrettable things, in my opinion. I apologize to my teammates for that. It’s not necessarily on siuhy and NertZ; I think [it was taken] really out of context, and people are looking at it like it’s me blaming them for the reasons. I meant to say it more as in the timeframe. I should have mentioned “in 2025” that it’s been tough for me, not the players that are making it tough for me. I think I messed up when saying that stuff.

Obviously it’s been a dark period for a time in my life in esports and in Counter-Strike this year. As someone who’s always been super consistent it’s been extremely disappointing, extremely depressing. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be here, and all my teammates reassured me that all that is not what they’re thinking and that they want me here, they want me to continue playing on their team and they enjoy having me around. And that goes the same to all my teammates, we all have a good relationship. That was just me having a bad mental, and that’s something I really learned about over the player break.

How’s the addition of flashie been?

He’s been a really good coach for us. He obviously learned alot playing under NAVI and blade, so he has a lot of that experience and that way of expressing himself and telling us how a team should be handled, teaching us how NAVI was. Overall he’s been keeping everybody in check and in place and on the same page. I think that’s the most important thing for us; a lot of times we weren’t being the best team and we were playing too individually, and he’s doing everything he can to make us a better team, and I think that showed today.