In the sports team in school, Ilya was one of the smallest but that didn’t stop him from working hard, “What really kept me motivated was the progress I was making throughout the years” – he said in his video. Sadly, Ilya was rejected by a few major sports teams. “After I got rejected, I lost my entire motivation and stopped playing football, probably the biggest mistake of my life, to be honest, but what can I say, I was a kid with a weak mentality.”