flameZ on facing NertZ: "We love each other but when we are enemies, we are enemies"

Vitality shocked the Counter-Strike community when they announced the benching of Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen in favor of Shahar "flameZ" Shushan, the free agent rifler from OG. There were doubts about flameZ's ability, but thanks to several dominant performances on LAN, those doubts have been erased. Now, heading into a semi-final appearance at IEM Cologne 2023, Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with the Israeli player about Cloud9's performance, how the team continues to be the best in the world, and what it means to have more Israeli players at the top level.

In an interview with HLTV, you mentioned that the goal was to have every single player on the team be the best in their roles. With that in mind, how do you think you and the team did in their arena debut?

I think on T-side on Mirage it was pretty good. Obviously when I said that to HLTV it was in the long-term, but every step matters, and ZywOo played every good as always. Spinx played really well on the CT-sides; on T-sides everyday played their role good but we fell short in some mistakes but in the end I've very happy with how everyone played. apEX was calling amazing, Magisk was keeping up the damage... I'm very happy how people performed in their roles.

Cloud9 had their debut today with their new roster in its full form. How do you think they did and do they feel like a complete unit yet?

It's weird because I think they felt like a team together when they're with Ax1Le they got to play together a little bit. But, on the other hand, they played with Buster for a few days, they didn't practice with Ax1Le. I don't know if Ax1Le was down to play CS, was seeing the games, or whatever he was doing, maybe he was busy getting his visa.

I think we were lucky in that he had to come two days before. I think they felt like a unit and pushed us hard on Inferno. I don't think they want to be sad with their performance to be honest, I think it sort of happens and they had unlucky circumstances, so I don't think they had the best day coming into it

Tomorrow you're going to face off against ENCE in a historic match featuring three Israeli players, how do you feel about that?

It's all about the respect for each other you know. We love each other but when we are enemies, we are enemies. It means a lot not because we beat them but because tomorrow there's going to be an Israeli in the finals, maybe two, maybe one I don't know but it means a lot to us from Israel and the matchup against ENCE is always good. They're a very good team nowadays with very good form and we just need to come and play good CS against them.

You can watch flameZ face off against his fellow countryman tomorrow at 09:30AM.