Natus Vincere's young player Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy has been confirmed as COVID-19 positive. The 20-year-old should be fine, but his condition meant that Na'Vi's IEM New York match against forZe had to be postponed. A decision which was surprisingly met with a lot of hostility by some of the forZe players.
Natus Vincere's young rifler Perfecto has contracted the coronavirus. The breaking news came out last night, alongside the official rescheduling of Na'Vi's IEM New York CIS clash with forZe.
Due to a health situation, the match between @natusvincere and @forzegg has been rescheduled to Tuesday, October 20th (time TBD)The B stream presses on! #IEM https://t.co/fTBRGvbUbv pic.twitter.com/LXhMRPjHwc
— Intel(r)ExtremeMasters (@IEM) October 18, 2020
Perfecto is young and in good shape, so we are having the liberty of not being too concerned for his short- or long-term help. We know Ilya has COVID-19 in the bag!
However, his condition and ESL's subsequent decision to reschedule Natus Vincere's IEM New York CIS group stage match with forZe rubbed some people on the latter's roster the wrong way. In-game leader Andrey "Jerry" Mekhryakov went to Twitter to express his frustration at the way ESL handled the situation and threw shade at the organizer's objectivity when it comes to punishing Na'Vi and other CIS teams.
I'd like to share a little situation with you : WE just realized ( 30 min before game aganist Na'Vi) that it will be re-schedlued. I know about COVID 19 and @perfectocsgo situation and it's terrible. But when it comes to Na'Vi all re-schedlue it's all good for them. 1/2
— Jerrycsgo (@Jerrycsgo1) October 18, 2020
If we were on their situation - we will be forced to play with coach / getting TL. I'm pretty sure about it. Not salty , just a facts. I'm not whining , just lost a day that we could spent different and with benefit. Share your opinion about this guys 2/2
— Jerrycsgo (@Jerrycsgo1) October 18, 2020
/ @virtuspro had TL on first map because of busy schedule. 10 min delay - TL on first map. Na'Vi Have problem - it's okay. Rules should be equal for everyone!
— Jerrycsgo (@Jerrycsgo1) October 18, 2020
In total what i want to say : I'm okay with this reschedule , but i'm not okay with way they did it. No one contaced us, no one explained anything. They just did it. "Decicion has made" are not the words you want to hear when it comes to violate your own rules.@HLTVorg
— Jerrycsgo (@Jerrycsgo1) October 18, 2020
His teammates are mostly in agreement with Jerry, and there might be some validity to their claims. Just a few days back, Virtus.pro were forced to forfeit the first map in their IEM New York CIS game against K23 because of a scheduling conflict with a Flashpoint Closed Qualifier match.
- READ MORE: IEM New York 2020 Brief Preview
Where Jerry and co's banter loses weight is that in VP's case, they were late for their game because of their participation in another event. A choice they themselves made when designing their schedule. If your team does not show up on time for the Champions League final because they were busy playing in the Sunday Football League, the ref is probably not going to take it too kindly.
In Natus Vincere's case, one of their players got infected with 2020's version of the black plague and ESL decided to be half-decent by giving them a chance to recover from the horrible news. We are certain there are no malicious thoughts in Jerry or any of his teammates' minds in regards to Perfecto's health and this outburst was just frustration boiling over, but it's still not a great look for the forZe guys.
The only legitimate question remaining is what will happen with this match and Na'Vi's remaining fixtures at IEM New York. Is Perfecto going to be able to play on the new match date of Tuesday, October 19? If not, why postpone it in the first place? We'll have to wait another day to find out the answers.
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