Looking back, thanks to the advancement of technology, the gap between fans and professional players has been unexpectedly narrowed. In the past, we could only “admire” silently and cheer indirectly in front of our computer screens, but now, chatting, donating, and interacting with our “idols” has become very easy. Gifts can even be handed directly and showcased by the players on their personal pages.
Recently, T1 fans in Vietnam also had their hearts flutter and were extremely excited when they experienced an interaction in “their mother tongue” with Cuzz. Specifically, during a livestream, while Cuzz was chatting about various topics, he suddenly read a comment from a Vietnamese fan saying “Anh yêu em” (I love you) in Korean phonetics. Immediately, Cuzz seemed quite amused by this and quickly searched for it on Naver.
Cuzz: “In Vietnamese, Saranghae means ‘Em ơi anh iu iem’ right? Em ơi anh iu iem… is that correct… When a boy talks to a girl like that…”
Koreans have a habit of transliterating foreign words into Hangul for easier reading, while Vietnamese has many words that lack similar sounds in Korean, leading to some “odd” pronunciations (for example, the Korean language does not have the ‘V’ sound, so they substitute it with ‘B’). However, Cuzz’s case surprised fans not only because he was very confident and dedicated in practicing flirting in Vietnamese but also due to his spot-on pronunciation.
After searching on Naver, Cuzz even learned quite a bit of Vietnamese phrases for flirting such as “Em có bạn trai chưa” (Do you have a boyfriend yet?), “Hôm nay tôi định tỏ tình với cô ấy” (Today I plan to confess my feelings to her)… He mimicked the tonal marks (sắc, ngã, nặng, hỏi, huyền) very accurately, making it easy to understand after just one listen.
It’s needless to say how thrilled the Vietnamese community felt witnessing this super adorable moment. Many fans even nicknamed Cuzz “Korean Son-in-law”, joking that with his “fluent” Vietnamese skills, he might soon follow in Profit’s footsteps to come to Vietnam.
During this livestream, T1 Cuzz also teamed up with the “prodigy” Sofm and achieved a quick and overwhelming victory against the opposing team. In the match, Sofm played Camille, showcasing explosive damage and instilling fear in the enemy team as he could solo win against all enemy positions on the map. This was also Cuzz’s first encounter with the shy Lilia, and although he wondered whether the new champion was overpowered and didn’t bother to look up her skills, Cuzz remained confident, believing he could “read” her after just a few encounters.
Initially, Cuzz had researched the name 10k EGO in the Korean rank and thought Sofm was Chinese, saying, “Oh, he’s not Chinese? I thought he was Chinese.”