Last week, with a surprise crossfire outside of mid on Dust2, Team Liquid did the unthinkable. Coach James "GBJame^s" O'Connor's screams joined in chorus with his team's, which echoed throughout the MLG Arena. The celebration came through with enough force to reach the mics of the casters, broadcasting the enthusiasm to the hundreds of thousands of those watching at home.

Team Liquid had beaten the best team in the world, Fnatic, and made history in the process. It would be the first North American team to advance to the quarterfinals of a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major since August of 2014.

For most analysts and fans, the victory came as a surprise. But for the newest member of the squad, Ukrainian star import, eighteen year-old Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, it was his expectation.

It's the beginning of redemption for the player, who recently came off being banned from Electronic Sports League (ESL) events for cheating in the previous version of the game.

He is looking to earn the respect for a team, which since he joined, has slowly started to work towards becoming the best in North America and has big aspirations to contend among the best in the world, something it did for the first time in Columbus, Ohio this year.

"I said that we can surprise [Fnatic and FaZe]," s1mple told ESPN. "I was so angry against FaZe because they said no team from North America would make the playoffs. After Fnatic lost to us, they said that they would win the Major. In CS:GO you should respect all of your opponents because they can surprise like we did."

But Team Liquid didn't stop at just FaZe or Fnatic as it was matched with fellow North American team Counter Logic Gaming in the quarterfinals. In the recent iBUYPOWER Invitational and ESL Pro League, Liquid dominated that team, only dropping one map as of late.

Like previously, Liquid prevailed over its North American brother with ease at the Nationwide Arena in front of 19,000 people. But despite the commanding victory, s1mple commented that Counter Logic Gaming "performed very well." Liquid had made it to the semifinals, further than any other North American Counter-Strike team had gone before in a major since 2013.

Waiting for the team, however, was the most interesting squad in the game: Luminosity Gaming. Originally from Brazil and moving to North America for more consistent competition and better training, Luminosity has come close to winning it all before, taking down some of the best teams in the world like Astralis and Natus Vincere in the process.

It seemed like a tall mountain to climb for Liquid-especially considering how great Luminosity looked all event. But nonetheless, s1mple and teammate Spencer "HiKo" Martin pushed the Brazilians to their limit. Liquid ultimately fell, but after overtimes in both maps played, they put up one hell of a fight.

"We had 15 match points," s1mple recalled. "And if we beat Luminosity Gaming, we had a great chance to beat Na'Vi because Luminosity won so convincingly."

Liquid took third-fourth place at the event, tying with Astralis, another legendary team in its own right, while Luminosity went on to be ruled the champions. For s1mple, he "feels good" about his team placements, but has higher expectations for the next big event his team attends.

At Columbus, Liquid had to play with Eric "adreN" Hoag, who it benched before the event in favor of young gun Kenneth "koosta" Suen, due to a roster lock. Despite the odd circumstances, adreN performed extremely well in Liquid's matches, showing why benching him could be the wrong decision for the team in the long run.

Kenneth "koosta" Suen when he was on Enemy Enemy

On his Twitch stream several days ago, s1mple said he'd prefer to play with adreN at the team's next event DreamHack Masters Malmö due to his desire to play with an AWP, while adreN is more capable than koosta with an AK-47 or an M4A4/M4A1-S.

"I really enjoyed playing with adreN; his performance was great," s1mple said. "He understood that this tournament was important for us. He showed up and gave it 100 percent. I think he will be great on whatever team he plays for."

Regardless, the team will use koosta at DreamHack Malmö. Over the past few months, koosta has become the main talking point of North American Counter-Strike talent during his time with Enemy (now known as Selfless). This event will be his first big time on stage.

"Yes [I'm excited], me and all of the CS:GO community will see [koosta's] performance on a big stage," s1mple says when asked about playing with koosta next week at Malmö. "I understand that this is the first is the first big tournament for him. He should stay calm and show his best performance to everyone."

Despite using a new player for the first time in a major event, s1mple is confident that his team will perform well at DreamHack. There, it will meet some of the best in the world once again, with Luminosity and mousesports being in its group. Only two people make it out into the bracket stage, and Liquid will need to best mousesports and Chinese team TyLoo at least to survive.

With how s1mple, HiKo, and teammates Nick "nitr0" Cannella and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski performed at Columbus, it's entirely possible. The team has had more practice with koosta as well since his addition in February. But s1mple has higher expectations than just making it to the bracket stage.

"We need to win this tournament," s1mple says bluntly. "[Especially] now that we are playing with our roster that we have practiced with for one month."

If it wins next week, Liquid will show just how much the team has improved since adding s1mple and koosta this year. The chances of winning are slim, especially with other Columbus top eight finishers like Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Astralis, and others potentially waiting in the bracket stage after the end of groups.

However, s1mple just wants to do his best and put on a good showing to represent those back at home. He's one of the first players to make the move to North America in Counter-Strike, and currently one of the few Europeans playing on a North American squad.

"I want to make all my fans from the Ukraine proud. Many Ukrainian players can be like me, work really hard and try and change their lives."