If you haven't seen part 1 of Karim kt interview, click
here.
| Why did you decide to leave BIG when things seemed to be going well?
Karim kt: "What made me decide to leave was, first of all, a bad career choice and the poor performance at the EUM where we were, I think, the favourites with KCorp."
"So we got a bad result by losing to Mouz, a team we should have beaten and had already beaten in the Prime League. After that, in the top side, we had a lot of discussions, LEC tryouts for certain players. Everyone was talking for themselves. In the end, SLT received an offer from Vitality that was hard to refuse, and I had GO interested."
"I could see how big the LFL was becoming. I missed playing in France, especially as I'd left France, and then the league became ten times what it was before. I missed playing in the LFL. In the end, for me, winning the German league didn't have the same flavour as winning the LFL."
"I think I was too sure of myself. I said to myself that if I'd managed to make the BIG teamwork, what was stopping me from making GO work, which had more experienced players like Innaxe, Beansu and Ronaldo? So I said to myself: "OK, the project sounds interesting. If the players listen to me, we're bound to put in some good performances. But no, I was too arrogant, I thought I could win the PrimeLeague and the LFL in the same year. Well, that didn't happen, I got Karma back a bit..."
"If I had one regret in esport, even though I try not to, it was at the end of the summer when Reeker came to talk to me and said: "Karim, if you'd stayed with BIG, we'd probably have gone up to LEC together". Maybe that was the moment when I realised, I'd made the wrong choice, but I'm trying to put things into perspective anyway."
| A return to France with GO where things aren't going too well, where you arrive for the summer of 2021 and, despite the arrival of new players for the spring of 2022, nothing seems to be working for you. With a bit of hindsight, how do you explain these difficulties despite a roster that, on paper, seems to be playing at the top of the league?
Karim kt: "I just think that most of the players weren't playing at their best and we had a lot of gaps and, certainly, different profiles. I think in terms of the jungle I was able to work with Ronaldo, but the game wasn't structured enough. With him, you never knew how the game was going to go. It was hard to adapt, our level was too volatile."
"What was happening in scrim wasn't representative enough of what we could do. There were too many new problems. One morning, we'd get up and the problems we were having weren't the same as the day before, even though the problem hadn't been fixed and had just disappeared because some of the players were playing a bit better. We just didn't have any real problems to deal with and also the Jeziz - Ronaldo relationship wasn't the best."
"It was complicated. Maybe people were under too much pressure? I know that Enjawwe didn't do a very good split, although he could have done a lot better and he knew it. The players were just not as strong as they should have been. In the end, we made the play-offs, so it's not as bad as all that, but it's still not as good as we'd hoped."
"Regarding the summer split, I think the problem is more related to GO, we finished top 7 I think. We started the split 3-0 and played LDLC for 50 minutes. The following week, we went 4-2, I think, or something like that. But GO still decided to respond to the sponsor and we found ourselves invited before the LFL superweek to a showmatch in Prague by a GO sponsor."
"So we went there, played the showmatch, won, came back and the whole team got the Covid! So we did less training because the whole team had the Covid. I think the team probably failed because GO was answering to the sponsors."
"So, this split is partly down to that, but then we also had rookies like NuQ on top, and Veignorem. Given the momentum we had at the start of the split, I think we should at least have made the playoffs. I'm perhaps delusional in thinking that the fact we had Covid, that we barely trained for three weeks, affected the split. But I think it did, at the very least."
| How did the end of the season go? Was it your choice to leave GO?
Karim kt: "GO wanted to launch a new roster to create a superteam. In any case, I didn't really want to continue because I thought that if I didn't change my environment, I wouldn't really improve. With hindsight, I think maybe I should have changed for the summer, but it's complicated in the middle of the season."
| How did the recruitment go with Lille Esport, after having been without a team for a long time?
Karim kt: "I knew Frozennn well and he put me in direct contact with the CEO, so I was able to do some tryouts which went well. I wanted to get back into competition, even if it was in DIV2 and that hurt my ego a bit."
"I said to myself that I could agree to play for the team if it would solve one of my problems, which at the time was the need to have a flat so that I could play from home."
"The CEO of Lille Esport promised to find me a flat in Lille, which he did, and I'd like to thank him for that. In the end, we got a decent result, but I think that Kenzuke and I were probably not at our best due to various problems within the team. It's still a decent result, but far from what I would have liked to achieve."
| Despite some good results with Lille Esport, you still decided to leave to join Joblife. What did you like about the project?
Karim kt: "I was always in discussions with Lille about extending my stay because they wanted to build a project around me. But Seelame talked a lot with Ashanome, who were looking for a project."
"For my part, we spoke with Seelan and Enjawwe because we wanted to play together again. I spoke a bit with Ashanome who had some preconceived ideas because of rumours about me, but in the end he liked my profile. So Joblife came to see the three of us to sign us up, so the choice was quite simple for me."
| So you're joining Joblife, a fairly new organisation. What's life like in this organisation?
Karim kt: "Joblife is currently trying to do things right, both in terms of content and professionalism. So I think some of the DIV2 teams are better structured than the LFL teams from two years ago, or even some of the LFL teams now."
"I've been very happy from the start. Everything's very well organised and the staff are there for us, even though we're a DIV2 club. When we're on bootcamp, if we need something, we get it, and people take care of us. At the moment, I don't have any problems!"
| Did you feel any pressure to join an organisation like Joblife, which has a very committed community?
Karim kt: "No, no pressure at all. On the contrary, it's something I really missed in my previous teams. Doing banter on social media is something I enjoy, because I love the interaction with the fans! Especially when you see what's going on in the LFL with the ultras associations, I've always thought that it would be great to play in a team supported by its supporters!"
"The games I'm playing in DIV2 now are probably more important than the ones I used to play at Gameward in 2020, even though I'm in a lower-level league. It makes the match and the result more valuable, and it motivates me even more to play well!"
| Does all this buzz around the team motivate you even more to go up to the LFL?
Karim kt: "It would make the story even more beautiful if I did it with JL, but if I want to return to the LFL, it would be even more beautiful with Joblife. It's mainly because today I'm playing with team-mates who I consider to be really strong, and it's more for their sake that I say to myself that it would be great if we could return to the LFL!"
"The fact that I'm playing with Seelame and Enjawwe again motivates me even more, because I don't want to tarnish the memory of our results in 2020, to look back on that period and say to myself 'Damn, maybe we weren't that strong'."
