Photo: LoL Esports
It is with unfeigned joy that we welcomed Nikolay “Zanzarah“Akatov in LFL at the start of the Summer Split. The Russian is a good client. First on the pitch, he is a player who has evolved through several segments in LEC and who also won a EUM, with a non-French team in addition, which is rather rare lately! But Zanzarah is also a colorful personality who speaks volumes. In interview, he puts on a show and for his first LFL victory with Misfits Premier, he took out the machine gun… Live from OTP, he murdered his old team, Astralis.
The tackle was more than hard, but the Russian played the ball, even though he also ripped off his old formation’s leg. You be the judge: regulatory tackle? Yellow card ? Red card ?
A departure not completely digested on the side of Zanzarah?
As a reminder, Astralis is a team that is the subject of much criticism, especially in France. In the LEC, it is subscribed to the bottom of the rankings and some question its legitimacy to be in the European elite … especially when a formation like Karmine Corp is blocked at the ERL level because of the franchise system. But the Red Star does not intend to let itself die and during the mid-season transfer window, it fired 3 elements: Whiteknight, promisq and Zanzarah. Looking at the results, such changes came as no surprise. But we understand if the players had a bad experience of being ousted during the season. These three veterans could have hoped for a little more consideration, after having wet the jersey for many months.
With her murder statement (“those who join Astralis don’t want to win”), Zanzarah doesn’t seem to have fully moved on. He had scores to settle yesterday. He also pointed out that Misfits was a “good organization”, clearly implying that this was not really the case with Astralis. “Tired of losing”, with the Red Star, he displayed a very big smile when lining up punchline on punchline. As expected, Zanzarah is an interview banger.
Zanzarah will have to do more to convince us
Trash talk obeys a somewhat special rule. It is not when one launches hostilities that one judges its effectiveness. We have to wait to see what will follow to really validate the lyrics. Be careful though, karma can quickly strike and the sprinkler can become the sprinkled, or rather the laughing stock.
For once, Zanzarah took advantage of his first victory to light up his old team. But for the moment, his record remains meager with a small victory for 3 losses in LFL. We therefore advise him not to be too clever. Misfits Premier is thought of as a superteam with big players like Woolite and Vander. Champion of France in 2021, the structure has real ambitions (and real means) to aim for the top 3. Let’s hope for Zanzarah that its level is of the same ilk as its quality trash talk.