NaVi is one of the best CS:GO teams in the world right now, winning the Blast Series event in Copenhagen and getting to finals like that of the Faceit London Major, and one of their key players has been experienced captain Danylo 'Zeus' Teslenko. In a recent interview with HLTV though, Zeus has said that it's likely he'll end his career as a player next year, even if he's not sure yet.
"As it stands, in 2019 I plan to end my career as a player, more likely towards the end of the year, maybe the middle, I'm not sure yet," he said. "Next year I'm going to try to select certain tournaments that we should prioritize as a team, where we will perform and do our best to win."
"At a certain point [this year], the goal was to become number one, but we didn't manage. I think our priority will be to secure key tournaments next year, for example the Major."
When reflecting on the year as a whole, he said that Astralis were the better team in a number of ways, which is why NaVi was number two behind them a lot of the time. He also looked back on NaVi's year critically, which was a mixed bag of results.
"We won four tournaments over the course of the year, we had three second places and four or five third-place finishes," he said. "We had three or four events that were complete failures. All in all, with a second-place finish at the Major, I would give it a four out of five."
He also spoke about Oleksandr 'S1mple' Kostyliev, saying that many teams have been interested in him, and that "it's always a possibility because he's one of the best players in the world, maybe even the best."
"We will see come the end of the year. It will be his decision to make. There's a chance [that he leaves], yes."
Will you be sad to see Zeus retire?