NAVI star Aleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev has offered his take on what Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov should do next to further his career.
m0NESY, who plies his trade for NAVI’s academy team, called NAVI Junior, is widely regarded as one of CS:GO’s most exciting young prospects.
The Russian player joined NAVI’s youth set-up in January 2020 at the age of 14, and just two months later was invited to play in FACEIT Pro League (FPL), the most prestigious matchmaking league in the game.
In 2021, m0NESY has been living up to his promise. He is averaging a 1.36 HLTV rating and 1.42 Impact despite NAVI Junior often failing to reach the latter stages of the European tournaments in which they compete.
Earlier in November, his explosive power was on full display as he helped NAVI Junior to a runners-up finish at the WePlay Academy League Season 2 Finals with a 1.30 HLTV rating, the second-highest overall.
S1mple offers advice
Fresh off guiding NAVI to their first Major title, s1mple appeared on the ‘HLTV Confirmed’ podcast on November 15 to discuss the team’s success in 2021 and the dominant run at PGL Major Stockholm.
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Asked about m0NESY’s current situation and what he needs to do to continue his evolution, s1mple said that the academy player should test himself in a new environment.
“I’d recommend him to ask for a one-year loan move because in the future he will definitely deserve to play for NAVI’s main team,” s1mple said.
“You never know what will happen in the future. Maybe someone will retire or something like that.
“He needs to get some more experience against better teams. In his place, I’d go somewhere for a year and see what happens. His English is okay, it’s not that good. He needs to practice it with people, and talk to them about something other than CS.”
S1mple also guaranteed that NAVI will not stand in the way of m0NESY joining another team to continue his development, saying: “It’s NAVI. They always help the players.”
