TR0JN on ElPrincipe: "He's one of the best coaches in Turkey, maybe even the best one"

Dust2.us' own Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore caught up with Alperen "TR0JN" Kilic of the BHOP mixteam after BHOP's win over WICKED in the round of 16 at Fragicago 2024. The two spoke about the mixteam, the old Turkish YeniCherry roster, his time with Eternal Fire Academy, and his aspirations for his career both in NA and in EU, among other topics.

Please note that the full interview can be found below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.

I'm here with TR0JN following BHOP's win over WICKED. BHOP came into this tournament as a pure mix just for this event, but you overall found pretty good results despite not having any time to practice together. Did you expect to do as well as the team is doing right now being a mixed team?

Yes because we have a good IGL. Even though we didn't have practice I knew brett is a good IGL and he can give comms and we also have good firepower in our team supa and the rest of them so yeah!

You mentioned having a good IGL of course brett is the IGL of this BHOP mix and he's one of the more experienced IGLs we have right now in sort of the middle of ESL Challenger League. What's it like having a chance to sort of play under his tutelage?

I mean he's a cool guy which is good because you're playing with that experience I mean I think we're we're all kind of at the same experience level so yeah it's good.

For those who don't know you're a Turkish player with your roots in the Turkish scene, but back in 2021 you did actually come to America for a while playing for a team called YeniCherry and then you played under Tempest for a while. Can I ask you why did you originally come to America? To play CS:GO or what what brought you to the United States originally?

So I'm a US citizen and Turkish citizen at the same time, I'm a dual citizen. so I was actually I came here for trying to have a brighter future but then I'll see if I can do something in CS as well and then I tried to go for it. Then after getting better as a player I got an invitation from Eternal Fire Academy so then I also went back to Turkey to play for them. I also spent some little time in Germany as well while playing for them and then back here after leaving the Eternal Fire Academy.

Focusing on that first team, YeniCherry, that team was really unique at the time because for a while it was five Turkish players. What was it like playing on that squad in North America. Was the goal for you guys to play like a European team or what was the goal or the reason that team got together?

So to be honest when I joined the team it was Advanced in ESEA and our first goal was making the team get into what was called Premier back in those days. We tried very hard for it but we couldn't do it. Then almost everyone tried to do some other things like business and other things but I still pursued for CS.

You know you've played in that Eternal Fire Academy team for quite a long time, how are you able to use that experience now coming back to North America? Do you feel like you have a leg up on some of these American players now?

So I'm not going to insult North America but I feel like if I compare North America to Europe, if you're a good player here and if you can find better players you have more chance to go up and show yourself because the scene is easier here compared to Europe in my opinion.

While you were on Eternal Fire Academy as well, you played under the coach ElPrincipe who now is the coach of LAG. Most of our American viewers will have no idea who this dude is, so can you sort of give us the some insight on what kind of Coach he is? What kind of leader he is? Do you think he'll do good work on LAG?

Oh he did everything for us, he's one of the best coaches in Turkey maybe even the best one. We all love him so much because for example if Wicadia is here one of the reasons he's there is because of ElPrincipe he was so good at making good players better. He was making us champions and he's a very nice coach.

Then there's another notable Turk in the NA scene right now Experative. I don't believe you ever had a chance to play with him because he went more for the international scene with teams like ESC but what do you think of him as an IGL?

I don't really know him that much we had just met face-to-face at this LAN but I don't know he plays. I think he's a nice player but I don't know too much I can't really say.

Then one last question before I let you get back to work ahead of your next match. We saw when Space Soldiers folded for a long time, for something like four or five years, we didn't really have a relevant Turkish team in tier one Counter Strike. Now that Eternal Fire is back and they finally sorted out their roster they're now a top 10 team. What's that like for you as a Turkish-American player to have a Turkish team you can look up to that's actually relevant in world Counter Strike again?

That makes me happy because when CS:GO was back in 2020 the Turkish CS was better I think because there was a lot of teams and like you said Space Soldiers was a successful team on a global [level] but then all the Turkish teams started dying except Eternal Fire and Space Soldiers. Now I'm happy to see Eternal Fire is top 20 and we also have a couple other teams now like Sangal and Fire Flux so I hope Turkish CS will be in a better place.

If you continue on your CS path do you hope to make your career here or do you want to go back to Turkey and make your career there?

Like I said I'll try to get in a better place here and improve myself more, then I can go back to Europe maybe.

BHOP's event run came to an end in the quarterfinals with a 2-0 loss to timbermen, leaving them with a 5-8th place finish.