“We had to go all out to sign donk” - Head of Spirit Academy

Spirit Academy manager Dmitry “Soul3” Bukhteev shared details about how the organization learned about Danil “donk” Kryshkovets and made the decision to sign him. He explained who first noticed the young player, how negotiations with his family were conducted, and why the coaching staff initially had doubts about him.

According to Bukhteev, donk’s initial scouting was handled by hally, since Dmitry himself was not involved in player trials at that time.

“I wasn’t taking part in player selection back then, so hally was the one scouting donk. He said this was either a cheater or a smurf, not a 12-year-old kid who was killing everyone. Donk’s movement was too good.

You have to understand that, besides outstanding aim, both donk and kyousuke have strong map awareness. You can see how they understand where the opponent is and where they need to be to kill them. Danil had all these abilities above average.”

Later, OverDrive joined the talks and passed on the young player’s contact details.

“OverDrive gave me donk’s contact. I was told that we had to go all out, but sign this guy.”

Bukhteev paid special attention to communication with Danil’s grandmother, who represented his interests.

“We talked a lot with his grandmother. I called her once or twice a day. I had to break my routine because she lives in a different time zone, and she’s quite an early bird.

We discussed all the scary clauses in the contract and its nuances: whether there were any payments, why those payments existed, and where the money went. I have to give his grandmother credit — she was extremely loyal and understood everything as much as possible. She really tried to understand the whole process.”

Dmitry also spoke about donk’s first practice sessions with the academy team.

“Hally didn’t really want to take donk to the first practice sessions, because he was running around killing everyone and didn’t really listen to the game plan. That hurt the ego of the older players. Donk played two or three practice sessions and then grinded FACEIT.”

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Danil Kryshkovets joined Team Spirit Academy in December 2021. A year and a half later, he was promoted to Team Spirit’s main roster, with which he won the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 and several other major international LAN tournaments.