Donk Identifies the Cause of Team Spirit’s Problems at the IEM Cologne Major

Danil “Donk” Kryshkovets believes that Team Spirit’s problems in the third stage of the 2026 IEM Cologne Major for Counter-Strike 2 were due to the players’ fatigue.

The player made this statement on HLTV.

“I think the main reason why the games were so tough for us is that we were really tired. We hadn’t had a day off for about 20 days—maybe even longer. We had training sessions and theory sessions. And after we arrived here, the official matches began. In the third stage, we had best-of-three series.

In the match against Aurora, it was clear that the game wasn’t easy for us, even though we won 13-4 and 13-5 on the second and third maps. We still lost on Dust2, which is the best map in our group. I think the main reason is simply how tired we were. We’ve been working so hard this month.”

According to Danil “Donk” Kryshkovets, the team had been preparing for the IEM Cologne Major 2026 for a long time without any days off, after which the tournament’s official matches began immediately. The esports player attributes the maps the team lost to severe fatigue resulting from their intense preparation.

As a reminder, Leonid “Chopper” Vishnyakov previously praised Boris “magixx” Vorobyov’s work as Team Spirit’s captain.