zonic: "If we at the Falcons decided to buy out s1mple's contract, it wouldn't be cheap"

Falcons coach Danny "zonic" Sorensen, in an interview with Cybersport.ru, explained why the Saudi club decided against buying out Alexander "s1mple" Kostylev from NAVI after the end of his loan term. According to the Danish specialist, acquiring the Ukrainian star would have been too expensive, putting the team under immense pressure due to high expectations.

Sorensen also didn't see a future for a lineup where Alvaro "SunPayus" Garcia remained the primary AWPer while s1mple took on the role of a rifler.

"Building a team is quite challenging; it requires considering numerous factors. Besides immediate results, I also prioritize thinking about the roster's future — how each decision will impact our long-term prospects. If we had decided to buy out Sasha's contract, it would have been costly and burdened the team with even higher expectations.

He also wanted to be a rifler, but I still had to consider how their dynamic with SunPayus would play out, and how we would perform over the next six months... It was a tough decision. I won't hide that I thought about this transfer a lot; I had to weigh everything carefully: how much money we would spend on the deal, what results it could bring, what other options were available in the market, and which ones might better suit us at this stage of the project... In the end, I decided that simply asking the management to spend so much money on transferring one player would create too much pressure on the roster — it wouldn't be the best solution."

Nevertheless, zonic spoke positively about his experience working with Kostylev, acknowledging his professionalism and initiative.

Recall that s1mple only played one official match for the Falcons. During the one-month loan period, the Saudi club's lineup only competed in the online tournament BLAST Premier Spring Showdown 2024, where they were eliminated after losing the opening game against Metizport.