Silent: from former player to top coach

A team of young players won the main Dota 2 tournament with a record prize pool of over $40 million. It seemed that the guys were just lucky. However, behind the players were those who helped them become champions.

Perhaps some have already forgotten who Ayrat Gaziev is. But it was this man, thanks to his many years of experience as a player, who helped the young guys from Team Spirit to win The International 10. Yes, we will talk about the coach of the team - Silent.

Ayrat started his professional career as a player in 2012. Then he joined the legendary CIS team Moscow Five and played with legendary Vladimir «PGG» Anosov and Ivan «Vigoss» Shinkarev.

M5 got a direct invite to The International 2012. But she could not do anything against other teams. The last place in the group and defeat in the first match of the main stage from TongFu. After that, Moscow Five disbanded.

Silent started playing in Team Empire. In his attempts to get to the 3rd The International, he changed his role and teams. However, all was in vain, the tournament he watched from home.

Later, he finally returned to Team Empire and participated at TI in 2014 and 2015. His best achievement over the years was 9th-12th place in the main tournament by Valve.

In December 2015, he moved from Empire to Virtus.pro, replacing Ilya «Illidan» Pivtsaev. However, after a while Silent finds itself on the bench and decides to try himself in other rosters.

In 2017, he played in Vega Squadron and is once again trying to break into the main event of the year. But the team loses in regional qualifiers. Ayrat returns to Team Empire, but not for long.

In February 2018, he joins FlyToMoon. After a successful performance at EPICENTER XL, where the team took 3rd place. This roster was signed by the Winstrike Team. They won regional qualifiers and went to The International 2018, where Silent repeated its result, taking 9th-12th place. The team does not qualify for TI19 next year. In the final of the CIS qualifiers, Winstrike Team is defeated by Natus Vincere with a score of 0:3.

The fans blamed almost all the players for the defeat of the team, but the carry, Ayrat, suffered especially. Many branded him as unskilled, who didn't understand anything about DotA. Naturally, after so many hats and accusations, it was impossible to play in the first line-up.

Silent goes to inactive. All his old friends are no longer professional players and are now known as Russian-speaking talents at tournaments. And although his skills begin to sag over time, he still has an understanding of the game. This means that there is a chance to change something.

And now, a year after leaving the pro scene, Silent tries himself as a coach of a new young team, Team Spirit. All this time, he studied the game in a new role for himself and was preparing to break into the pro stage again.

But after joining the team, there were some problems. The new coach had a conflict with the captain so bad. The results of the team did not go, and it was the middle of the DPC season. The decision was taken harshly and quickly: so bad left the team. And in three days a replacement was found - Mira.

After that, the team's results have changed for the better. The new player joined the team and played great with the others. And the coach, now having no problems, plunged headlong into working with the team.

Despite the fact that the first DPC season was not so successful for the team, their new playstyle and drafts have attracted the attention of analysts and fans. And although Team Spirit did not go to ONE Esports Singapore Major 2021, many believed in their success next season.

The second season of the Dota Pro Circuit in the CIS ended for Silent and the team with the second place and a trip to WePlay AniMajor, where they took 7-8 place. The team undoubtedly progressed, but this was not enough for an invitation to The International 10. Team Spirit had to play qualifiers in the CIS region, where they faced Team Empire in the final and in a tense match were able to defeat them with a score of 3:2.

For Silent, participating in The International is nothing new. However, it was then that he had to fully reveal himself in the new role of a coach. None of Team Spirit was sitting idle. In addition to the players, the coach of the team and the manager of the Korb3n roster were actively preparing for the upcoming tournament and assisting in the preparation of the players.

The first thing Silent did was practice games and clanwar games. It was necessary to select a pool of heroes for each player and make preparations for drafts even before the start of the games.

It is worth noting the role of Vitaly «Sword_Art» Petkin. He is a Team Spirit analyst and assisted the coach before and during TI10. We forgot to mention this in the article «The Phenomenon of Team Spirit. The path from no-names to the stars».

Before the group stage, absolutely all teams from all the world were actively preparing for the games and practicing with each other. For the coach and his team, this is a great chance not only to increase the skill of the players on signature heroes, but also to “test the strats”.

The clanwar results were good. A high percentage of victories in face-to-face meetings with world giants gave confidence to all Team Spirit participants. The strengths of the team and each player in particular were also identified. This is what will later become one of the components of such an unsurpassed game.

According to the results of the clanwars, the trainer has draft preparations on hand. Moreover, the heroes and strategies of the enemy are analyzed. In some cases, you can spy on something from others and use it yourself against them.

Analyzing the enemy is like homework. The coach and the team know who they will play against tomorrow. And therefore, before the game, there is a complete analysis of the opponent, their heroes and actions on the map. After that, you need to prepare and draw up an action plan for all cases. This is a huge amount of work and not everyone is capable of doing it well. As the Spirit players themselves will later say, Silent always went to bed late and got up earlier than everyone else, practically spending no time sleeping. All his time was spent on constantly analyzing enemy drafts and developing strategies.

The Draft Stage is the first and most important stage of the game, which in most cases determines everything. And Silent was good at it. He was perfectly prepared for the opponent, knew his heroes and possible strategies, put them in an awkward position and forced them to make mistakes. Miposhka also assisted him. Moreover, the players of his team have a large number of heroes in the pool. This means that Spirit is less constrained in the drafting phase.

Ultimately, his knowledge and hard work together with the team, coupled with calmness and composure, played a huge role in Team Spirit's victory at The International 10. It is worth noting the work with players who were in a calm, and even relaxed state throughout the tournament. It's the result of a psychologist's work. In addition, the young guys, looking at the confidence of their coach and manager, were confident in themselves and their strengths.

Unlike Spirit, their opponents, the favorites of the tournament, were under enormous pressure from the fans. PSG.LGD, according to XinQ and y`, after the second map lost their confidence and felt a sense of guilt. And only after talking with coach xiao8 and his active participation in drafts on maps 3 and 4 of the grand final, the team was able to make a 2:2 score and retain the chance to win. And in the last map of the final, according to the Chinese players, they were generally afraid to move around the map and take any active actions. Pressure, insecurity and fear are the reasons for failure. Read more about this in our article «How the fear of PSG.LGD players prevents them from winning The International».

And now, after so many failures in his career, Ayrat «Silent» Gaziev proved to everyone that the change of role and hard work will give results. And, undoubtedly, he was very lucky with the team and organization. Indeed, it was thanks to them that he was able to fully prove himself in the role of a coach and contribute to such an incredible victory for the CIS team.

Be the best player in the world, but if your hands shake at the crucial moment, you will lose. And the coach, manager and psychologist helped to cope with this in Spirit, for which they have great respect. It was they who made the young guys believe that they could defeat absolutely everyone, even Team Secret and PSG.LGD. And all the forces and emotions of the players were directed exclusively to the game, not paying attention to the rest. After all, the rest can be entrusted to a coach whom they trust. Everyone should do their own thing and give all the best. And Silent did his job.