Bleed Esports Valorant head coach Nikola ‘LEGIJA’ Ninić revealed what went fallacious with the VCT Pacific workforce in 2024 and what saved Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker from returning to his OpTic Gaming kind.
In an interview with Duncan ‘Thorin’ Shields, the previous Counter-Strike coach laid out how inner points and the strain of being a star participant precipitated yay to have a horrible 2024 VCT season.
LEGIJA, the architect behind Bleed’s ascension to VCT Pacific, mentioned yay had points with the workforce’s in-game chief, Ngô ‘crazyguy’ Công Anh, virtually instantly. The coach defined that he couldn’t bench yay over his beef with crazyguy due to how a lot cash Bleed spent to signal the beginning participant.
“[Yay] tried to unravel the issue that he had with crazyguy. It didn’t work out, crazyguy was probably not cooperative I’d say, and I believe that was an enormous downside,” LEGIJA mentioned.
The German coach additionally mentioned yay’s “psychological” was holding him again from taking part in his finest because the participant would dominate scrims, however overthink every little thing throughout stage matches.
“The second he will get on the stage, the strain hits him so arduous that he loses himself fully,” LEGIJA.
Yay additionally didn’t do himself any favors exterior of stage matches to assist alleviate the strain to carry out, because the coach claimed the North American participant would go on social media and hunt down posts about himself.
The previous OpTic Gaming star would additionally try to research upcoming opponents’ earlier matches, which might additionally trigger him to overthink what the enemy was doing in the course of the sport. This usually precipitated him to make calls and performs throughout pivotal rounds that the workforce didn’t apply.
“This man is overthinking every little thing, each f**king bullsh*t,” the coach mentioned.
Concerning in-game criticisms, LEGIJA mentioned yay was a fantastic fragger however lacked the aggressive tendencies to play Duelist at a excessive stage.
The North American participant has had a tough time in skilled Valorant after an unimaginable two-year run with Envy/OpTic Gaming that noticed him make a number of main tournaments, and win a Masters trophy.
In 2023, yay solely gained one match on the skilled stage throughout his time with Cloud9 and Disguised. The Masters Reykjavík 2022 winner matched that win whole in 2024 with Bleed. Yay is now a restricted free agent and might be on the transfer to a brand new workforce once more for the 2025 VCT season.
