A newly recruited sniper for the HEROIC team, Abdul "degster" Gasanov, explained why he had been absent from the professional Counter-Strike scene for such a long period. The Russian esports player shared his thoughts in an interview with HLTV.
"There were offers, but I don't know how many. <...> There were negotiations with several teams two or three times – before the New Year and in the previous offseason. There were teams that wanted to pick me up, but I had some health issues, and it was important for me to figure out what to do next. As a professional player, throughout my entire career, when I had something I needed to take care of, I put it on pause because I didn't want to miss training before tournaments or train less. And at that moment, I was contemplating and preparing.
After several years in esports, you encounter problems that people sometimes don't talk about, but need to be addressed. One of the issues I faced was back pain, which couldn't be fixed during tournaments, only if you did exercises and consulted doctors who could help with it. That was one of the things I dealt with [besides surgery]. I didn't have an idea in my head that I wanted to come back at that time or another. I was open to negotiations; I never said no to anyone."
degster also reflected on how much time he will need to adapt to the current meta and his new team. The player noted that he had no expectations.
"I watched all the games for the past two months. I spent a lot of time reviewing demos and observing all the players and teams that are succeeding. I tried not only to keep an eye on them but also to understand if there is such a big difference [between CS 2 and CS:GO]. Of course, there is because CS 2 is a new game, and I had surgery, then recovery, and so on for two months, so I didn't keep up with what the teams were doing.
Right now, I don't know what will come out of this, and I have no expectations. I don't think whether it will take time or not. I'm super motivated to play in the tournament, and when I do that, I'll see what I should do next and what I'll need to demand from myself to get better. That's the best I can do."
Recall that in June of last year, Gasanov was benched by OG and has not played any official matches since then. On May 12, 2024, he was officially introduced as part of HEROIC.