Upset galore on the first day of playoff action at ESL Pro League Season 23 sees Natus Vincere take on FUT in the first semi-final.
This will be the first meeting between the main NAVI squad and the former NAVI Junior team, with Laurențiu “launx” Țârlea instead of Drin “makazze” Shaqiri.
Soon, we will find out if the students surpassed their teachers. Here’s our NAVI vs FUT CS2 betting preview.
makazze run rings around The MongolZ in their quarter-final victory. Credit: © NAVI
The MongolZ are usually not an easy team to put away, but that didn’t stop NAVI. The international squad outlasted their opponents on Ancient before completely shutting them out on Mirage to win the series.
While all NAVI players did their part in yesterday’s game, makazze’s performance was at a different level. The former NAVI Junior star had over 115 ADR for the whole series, which is frankly an absurd number.
Some people spelled trouble for NAVI in 2026 after they made no changes in the off-season, but the sheer amount of talent they possess on their roster is enough to ensure they stay in contention for playoffs and occasional trophies.
If makazze continues to develop at this rate, he could become one of the best CS2 players by the end of the year.
launx is fitting in perfectly with the former NAVI Junior core. Credit: © ESL
While there’s no doubt that FUT are an exciting team full of young prospects, virtually nobody expected them to beat MOUZ, one of the best CS2 teams, in the ESL Pro League quarter-finals.
However, through sheer grit and determination, they somehow managed to pull it off. The youngsters performed two different impressive feats in the game, coming back to win Dust II from an 11-5 deficit, and denying MOUZ’s comeback on the decider.
All members of the team contributed fairly evenly, with their frag total for the series varying between 45 and 48 kills. With that sort of consistency, they have a good shot at taking down another legacy organization in NAVI.
Handling the pressure on a LAN stage shouldn’t be a problem for FUT, now that they’ve taken such an impressive victory over the chronic underachievers of MOUZ.
The CS2 odds for this matchup are slightly in NAVI’s favor, which is understandable considering their recent results and historical name value.
On top of that, NAVI’s coach Andrey “B1ad3” Gorodenskiy should have a good idea of how FUT like to play, as the core of the team is the same as it was in NAVI Junior not too long ago.
With NAVI seemingly having the tactical edge, and makazze playing out of his mind, NAVI should have the edge over their former juniors. However, there is a very high chance that it will go to all three maps.
Score prediction:
Odds:
Odds courtesy of GG.Bet Esports and are subject to change.
Also read: G2 and Liquid complete malbsMd and NertZ swap ahead of CS2 Major cutoff
Featured image source: © ESL
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