Mangusu interview at TI 2025: "Even when we weren't in a team together, we continued to build and grow as a group, helping each other”

Andreea "Div" Esanu

16.09.2025

HEROIC won over the entire crowd at Barclays Arena in Hamburg, Germany, with their performance this past week at The International 2025. They were the only South American team at the pinnacle tournament of the year, and despite all the pressure, they made the region proud by placing in the top 6. It’s a performance that hasn’t been matched by any SA team since 2022.

We’ve been fortunate to sit and talk with Vlad "Mangusu" Sateanu, HEROIC’s assistant coach, who's been working with the team for more than a year and a half now. Moreover, Mangusu has been collaborating with a few HEROIC players since 2021. It’s been a long road for all of them, and we took the opportunity to learn how their strong relationship translates into HEROIC’s success.

We’ve talked about work ethics, training, and mental preparation for a tournament like The International, but we were also curious to learn how Mangusu made the transition from the Romanian scene to South America. All these and more in our interview with him from The International 2025.

Editors’ note: The interview was recorded a day before the playoffs in Hamburg.

Hi Vlad. I'd like to start this interview by talking about HEROIC's journey to The International from the beginning of the season, as there have been significant developments with your team, and I'm curious about how you assembled all the pieces and managed to peak at the right moment.

I think at the start of the year, we kind of had a plan in place for what to do to peak at TI. But then, everything went completely off script, yet somehow, we still managed to pull it together. We didn't really know who would be our carry after last year's TI, but we knew we wouldn't continue with K1. We actually wanted Yuma from the start. I worked with him in the past at Hustlers in Europe, and I thought he was the best option. Unfortunately, he couldn't come with us right from the start because he was still with Nouns. And we were like, okay, we have no choice anyway, so let's go and try with Parker, even though we knew all of the things about him, but we thought we had a good environment as a team, and maybe we can make it work.

And it worked at first. You won with him the first-ever trophy for South America at PGL Wallachia Season 2. What happened after that?

I think Parker was perfect for PGL Wallachia. The team already knew how to enable a playstyle like his. We were on our honeymoon. Everything went right, and we could just see everyone peaking and coming together at the same time. In that tournament, we saw him completely enabled.

However, we realised that we would not be able to work everything out with him. I think I saw an Astini clip where he looked at his Liquipedia, and he was like three months max for each team. That's how long it went for us as well.

photo credits: Sebastian Pandelache | PGL

And then we needed to rebuild, and we were really lucky that we could get Yuma, and it was pretty good from the start. We were also very happy to get Whisper. We knew that we had a lot of potential. We instantly did well, we got the top eight at FISSURE Playground 1.

As a new team, we initially focused on playing a more aggressive style, but that didn't really fit the patch. At that point, we went in almost like a crisis because the way we had been playing did not work anymore. And then we had to come out of that. We spent months just trying to learn how to play completely differently. That was an insane amount of work, and we managed to get through it because we have guys who are willing to work and because we have two coaches and so forth. After that, we realised we needed to focus on the mental side. It was kind of like a wake-up call for us because we thought we were pretty good at it, but then we realised that we actually had a lot of habits and culture that had built up in the team that were not the best.

We went to the Esports World Cup, where I still think we played at a really high level, although we barely managed to make it through the groups, and then we choked versus Talon. That event was, again, mentally demanding and required a lot of preparation outside of the game, and I would say that this is the main thing we improved a lot. We now have a really strong routine that we try to maintain throughout the week, and especially throughout the day before the game.

It's amazing to hear that, because there's a general perception about South American players that they are extremely emotional. You've been with South America teams for a few years now. Do you see an improvement in how the players from SA deal with the stress overall, now, and their emotions?

Not really. It got to a point where we, HEROIC, just do our own thing. For us, that's something that we've been building since I started in SA. I had KJ as the captain in my first team, SG-esports, when we went to TI 2021. The moment we were done with that team, we played in NoPing, and we got 4nalog.

Even when we weren't in a team together, we continued to build and grow as a group, helping each other. It's more about us and the years that we put in, rather than the region, as weird as that sounds. I feel like we have a culture that's completely different from the region that we managed to build in.

photo courtesy of Valve

I never asked you. How did you actually get to work with South American teams?

I think from my starting days, I didn’t integrate well into the Romanian group of players. Even after I became decent at the game, I never felt like I was a part of the Romanian group. There was a group that played with No Bounty Hunter and stuff like that. I did try to join that group and play, but I realised early on that it's not really the best environment to be in. I was very much detached from that.

I could see, for example, that in that group, it was very clear Ionut "BliNcc" Musat did not share the "bad parts" of the group's culture. And I think you can see that he is doing a really good job right now. I think probably my influences when it comes to people from Dota have been the OG people. I was really inspired by all the culture they built in OG. And then there is Cristian "ppasarel" Bănăseanu, the TI8 OG coach. He also helped me a lot, providing guidance, insight into culture, and policy.

Honestly, I was kind of stupid at the start. I think I ended up getting here because I really wanted it, but then it wasn't just that I really wanted it. I put myself in a position where I didn't have a choice but to make it happen, and I was just really trying.

I wasn't managing to play as much as I could to really get to a super good level. I was really close to getting into Division 2 in DPC, but I needed to make some money, so I started offering one-on-one coaching. Then, I worked with a Brazilian YouTuber, D2Bowie. I just coached him on his stream, and then at some point, I analysed SG games together with him. I made a file of things I saw in the game, and he sent it to the SG guys, and they were looking for a coach.

Funnily enough, Astini said no to them, so thank you for that one. And I started with them, and I realised that I was really fit for the job. But after that, it was just a lot of grinding.

Speaking about grinding, do you have a certain goal for this TI with HEROIC?

What I can say right now is that, deep inside, you always know how much belief you have in yourself. Sometimes, you look at the bracket and you feel scared, and you don't share it with your teammates. But you feel like, “Oh my god, we have to play PARI again or some stuff like that.” But now, it doesn't feel like that. It feels like I look at the bracket and we can beat any team there. And that's a really nice feeling to have.

I know we can win. As crazy as that sounds, I know we can win. I hope we get to at least repeat Thunder Awaken’s top 6 from TI 2021. I know we can do better than that, but I’d be happy with a top 6 too.