When you say "going back to basics", we often hear about the fundamentals of teamplay that young players don't have. If you had to summarize the first points you make when you pick up a young player, how would you present it? What does a player need to understand once he knows how to put heads together?

For misutaaa, I was really starting from scratch. For Nabil (Nivera), a little less, he already had a little knowledge and his brother who helped him. Python had already played a lot with Nabil and some friends of his, and he was older than misutaaa when I picked him up, he was already 17 or 18 years old. So already it was easier than with misutaaa, who was 14 years old.

For misutaaa, you really had to go through the team fundamentals: the tactical aspect, the strategic aspect, the communication. Kévin is a very shy kid, very introverted, still is today. I tried to mold him in my own way, si he could try to copy my behavior in the game or outside the game, to facilitate exchanges and interactions with everyone.

CS:GO is a team game. If you're isolated in your team, even if you're strong, you're always going to get pushed aside because you don't fit the mold. The only exception might be ZywOo. But if not, a team will always favor someone who is a present, active, part of the group, over someone who is introverted and on the fringe. So the first job was to put him in condition for team cohesion, a real mental work on his character, to give him a basis on real life.

Afterwards, we had to get into the in-game part, the tactical and strategic aspects. There are working methodologies that everyone shares, and that I instilled in him: how to control his zone, how to react to the leader's call, how to react to what is happening on the map, both in macro and micro aspects.

As you said, he was 14 years old when he joined you. You're older and you generally supervise players who are much younger than you are. How do you deal with this generational gap? Does it pose a problem for you to be able to relate to them, to be close to them, knowing that they don't necessarily have the same references, whether inside or outside of the game?

I may be a little old, but I still have a "youthful" mentality. I stay up to date on a lot of subjects, I can have conversations on a lot of subjects. A simple example, today it's the Instagram generation so I'm trying to follow the thing, the movement, to show the player that I know where he's coming from. The flow is better, because I understand the activities he's interested in and we can have a interesting conversations. The player sees that I'm interested, so he opens up and we can easily communicate, we talk more about life than about Counter-Strike.

I can give him advice about life, about mistakes I've made, things he should or shouldn't do. For a kid like misutaaa, I try to be a bit of a fatherly figure, even if I say I'm his father for fun. Maybe more like an older brother. So this generational shock, I've never felt it, and I don't think misutaaa has felt it either, since I'm open-minded.

Regarding misutaaa, it's been a while since his name was in the subtop and he was being followed. Conversely, it seems to me that Nivera's ascent was much faster, and he was less in the circles you were talking about earlier. Were you also taken by surprise, or had you scouted him longer ago?

One day, someone came to talk to me about a player and said "you're going to laugh, it's ScreaM's brother", that was about 2 years ago. They told me that if I was looking for a player, I should contact him to see if he wants to take it to the next level, but they warned me that he was very introverted, that he only played with his buddies. Basically, he had a circle and he never came out of it. I started looking at his demos on FACEIT to see what he was doing, and I noticed that mechanically he was very clean.

But by that time, we were a full roster. 3 months later, we had a player leaving and I contacted Nivera. I told him that I was a former teammate of his brother and I offered him to join us, to take him under my wing to propel him to the front of the stage. It's early 2019 at this time, and he answered me, very politely, "no, sorry".

He told me that he knew me through his brother, that he was honored by my offer but he was on a project with friends and he wanted to see where it could go. I understood, he deserved credit for that. However, he told me that if he was available in the future and I needed him, he would be open.

4 months later, I was invited to Richard's (shox) wedding, and Adil (ScreaM) was there. It was the first time I saw him in 8 years. We started talking and he asked me about what was going on in my life. I explained to him that I had taken the game seriously and that I was trying to bring young people up, to teach them the game. He was interested and he asked me why I didn't get his brother with me. I told him about our exchange and he was stunned that his brother refused my offer. He told me "don't worry, when I get home I'll talk to him". A week later, I received a message from Nivera who told me that he had talked with his brother, and asked me if I had a place for him, he was motivated, he wanted to break through.

It was summer 2019, and at the beginning of the school year there are the ECN (French Championship) and I had a slot. I offered him to join us for this competition. So in August we began to train together, and in September we started the ECN, it was the beginning of our adventure together. So yes, he came out faster than misutaaa because he was really unknown.

Since you played with a young ScreaM and a young Nivera, did you find similarites between them? Whether in terms of personalities or in the game, does Nivera have things that ScreaM didn't have?

They don't have the same role, Nivera is a sniper whereas ScreaM was a pure rifle. But Nivera is very good at rifle too, he is very complete. Compared to the 15-year-old Adil at 3DMAX, Nabil is more complete than his big brother. But that's normal, these are incomparable times: today, they have plenty of streams available, demos, plenty of help to develop individually. Back then, we had nothing, we just had rotten SourceTV and we had to make our own progress. So it makes sense that he was more complete than his brother from the beginning.

In terms of character, they're the same. Adil, at the beginning, he didn't say a word, he was very shy, he almost hid when we talked to him, but now you see him in stream, he's a rockstar. Nabil is the same, very shy, like his brother in terms of behavior.

So the ECN Winter 2019, that's where the Wonderkids team that caught everyone's eye.

These ECN, we played them with misutaaa, Nivera, ninis and MAIDHEN. Since our sniper was ninis, I had told Nabil that he was going to play rifle on T-side and secondary AWP on CT-sode, in order to fit in with our habits. I told him that it was temporary, and that eventually he would certainly get the sniper back. But towards the end of the ECN, he came to see me because he wanted to play the sniper, he was having a hard time finding his place on the team as a rifle and he prefered to play with his buddies. At that time, his buddies were sabAAAA, Kyojin and Python.

In the end, he left us before the end of the league, but I knew very well that the scene would move and he wouldn't be far away. One month later, in December, we finished the ECN at the 6th place. I stayed with misutaaa, and Nabil sent me a message saying that he was with Python, sabAAAA and Kyojin, and that they would like misutaaa to join them and for me to coach them. I thought that was a good idea, and we started the real Wonderkids project.

Having followed quite closely what you were doing at that time, especially at the Louvard 5.1, it seemed to me that Python was more of a support and anchor role, he was not a starplayer like Nivera and misutaaa. These are often roles that require a certain maturity, played by smart players like NBK or KRIMZ. Did he have that maturity when you met him, so that it was logical he took on this role? Did you have to help him get into these positions that are often the most ungrateful and complicated?

Python, I met him a year ago through Nabil. As soon as we started talking, as soon as he opened his mouth, I understood that he was an intelligent person, just the way he articulated himself. He's educated, he's well raised, he's above average. We started training and in the game, I could see that he already had a good foundation, even though he didn't really have a mentor. You could see that he had worked on his game individually, that he had thought about his roles.

And that's consistent with the anchor roles. They're usually played by intelligent players who are able to analyze their positioning on the spot, read the opponent's game and adapt quickly. These are positions that require a high CS:GO IQ, an ability to understand the game live. When I started coaching the 5, it was obvious that he was above many subtop players already, even though he had no experience. Just by thinking about it, he was always well positioned and useful to the team. And, on top of that, he's very skilled.

Do you think he has the potential to climb as high as Nivera and misutaaa?

Yes completely. Already at Heretics, he will progress and I think that next year he will be a candidate if there is a change in a top team. And besides, he is trilingual, he is studying languages. He is perfectly bilingual in English and very comfortable in German. Even if he is not chosen in France, if he makes a good year at Heretics, he will go high, he is still young, he is 18 years old. For me, within a year, he will be one of the best French players.

When you launch a project like this, what is your priority as a trainer? Do you seek above all to set up a team game to give them collective principles? Do you focus more on individuals, making them work on their own so that they master their role to perfection?

Both. It's been more than two years now that I've been fully invested in the project, while working on the side, with a family life (my wife and my little girl). So in the evenings, when I came on the PC at 7pm, it wasn't for fun, they knew that when I logged on, it was to be productive and work hard.

For the collective aspect, I took time when necessary, sometimes during midday or in the evening after training, to review game phases, watch demos. And on top of that, individually I watched their demos, we did sessions together where I take a player's point of view, I share my screen on Discord, everyone watches what the player is doing and I analyze live with them. It's a lot of work, but it's essential for them to be able to progress, to learn from their mistakes. My goal is really to develop their CS:GO IQ.

If they can understand and assimilate that, you've come three-quarters of the way. But they have to realize that it's important, that you have to be rigorous and that they want to succeed.

It's been 8 months since misutaaa joined Vitality and Nivera joined Heretics. Have you noticed major evolutions in their game, aspects where you think "that, before, he didn't do that, he now understands new things" ?

Of course I have. By playing full time against the best teams in the world since March, necessarily, a guy like misutaaa has progressed. What I did was a summary of what he had to do, who he had to be to apply for a spot in a good team. There, he is surrounded by experienced players, which was not the case before, outside of myself. That alone helps him to progress through mimicry.

In the game, he's going to discover phases, strategies, that I know but that I hadn't implemented because we didn't have the time and it wasn't necessary in Main/Advanced, because the level is quite low. In these divisions, all you have to do is be strong individually and have the collective basics, and you will easily beat teams that are between the top 30 and the top 100 HLTV. These teams often have the skill, but not all of them have the collective game. This is especially true with the Eastern teams: they just want to beat you with their skill. If you compete on that level, they can't find a different solution.

Basically, if your team has a structured game and your players are strong, you can easily beat those teams without doing incredible things, just by playing CS:GO right.

There's one player I wanted to come back to, it's sabAAAA. It felt like he was one of the, if not the best player in Wonderkids. Today he disappeared from the radar, what happened?

A year and a half ago, we made a team together that lasted 2 weeks, just to finish the running ECN season, in May 2019. He couldn't continue because his parents put pressure on him to devote himself to school and get his Bac (the main French diploma at the end of high school). At that time, he was thinking about quitting. When I met him back in December with Nivera and Python, I asked him why he didn't stop, and he explained that he managed to negotiate a sabbatical year to try to break through.

In terms of players, I think he was one of the best: he had the communication, the skill, he understood the game, and moreover he was leader-in-game. So he had everything he needed to succeed. But sabAAA is like 90% of the subtop, they want it now. Especially since he had his deadline in June/July, with his sabbatical year coming to an end. In January 2020, we were on the verge to join a structure and get paid. At the last moment, the structure changed its mind, arguing that they did not have the means.

That had a huge impact to sabAAA's morale. And a month later, the last straw was when Kevin went to Vitality and Nabil went to Heretics. He felt cheated and pushed aside, which was legitimate. I tried to explain to him that it was okay, that Python was still there, I had taken AKUMAAA to replace misutaaa and we were looking for a last player. I told him that if they had been taken, he too would be noticed sooner or later if he kept working and getting involved.

Unfortunately, he didn't trust me and preferred to quit playing. He withdrew and, for some reason, he took a bit of a grudge against me. Since then, he has disappeared.