An Insight to the Boston Red Legion
Orlando, FL.
An insight to the Boston Red Legion AKA Russian Legion
Interview by Young Choi
We politely pulled aside Andre Leonov to give us a few minutes of his time to talk to us about the Russian Legion (NXL Boston Red Legion)
If you follow the competitive side of paintball, surely by now you have heard of the Russian Legion paintball team and how the members of the team are true professional paintball players that play paintball for a paycheck. The Russian Legion team is the only team that pays their players a livable salary and the players’ sole jobs are to train to be the best paintball players in the world. 
Andre Leonov, Manager of Russian Legion
The Russian Legion team is the only Non-United States team to win a major in the United States with their Xball win over Dynasty at the PSP Pittsburgh event last season. Though other European teams have won a 5 man event stateside, the Russians won a major event with many top teams participating. The Russian Legion won every match that they played in the European Xball League and the majority of their victories were more than 10 point margin wins.
Boston Red Legion
The Russian Legion was not satisfied stomping the Europeans into the dirt so they decided to buy a franchise into the NXL and play as the Boston Red Legion. Some of the best paintball teams in the world compete in the NXL and that competition is where the Russian Legion chose to be. At the time this article is published, the Boston Red Legion has only lost their first NXL match against Chicago Aftershock. Since that defeat the team has gone on a rampage over the rest of their competition. Many have their money on the Boston Red Legion team to come up as the winners of the President’s Cup at the end of the NXL season.
 Methodical and deadly
We got a chance to sit down with Andre Leonov, Manager of the Russian Legion, and asked him kindly for an interview… here is how it went…
PBC: What is your role with the team?
Leonov: My name is Andre Leonov, I am the manager for the Russian Legion in the United States.
PBC: How long has Russian Legion been a team?
Leonov: The Russian Legion started in the spring of 1996 and so it is gonna be about 9 years already.
Run and Gun masters
PBC: Everyone knows that the Russian Legion came up the Pro ranks hard and fast, I understand that the team trains harder than any other team. Is what the rest of us heard, is it true?
Leonov: I guess it is true. We practice five times a week and every practice lasts four to five hours. So it definitely helps us out a lot to compete at the American level. Up to three hours alone can be spent on physical conditioning.
PBC: Your team has chosen to buy into the NXL. What were the reasons to buy this franchise? 
Leonov: Well definitely the league probably has the best teams right now. And we believe in the future of the NXL so that is the reason why we decided to play in this league with the best teams. This league is gonna be the biggest challenge for us to compete at an even higher level of play than in the past. We want to set the stage to show that we can play at the highest level.
PBC: Oh, I think that you guys have already shown that you guys can compete, you guys already command a lot of respect from the rest of the league. How does that feel?
Analyzing their opponent
Leonov: Oh definitely it feels great, it just really feels great. I mean we see a lot of people that support us when we play and it is really flattering to hear people cheer for us when we do play. Especially with us playing in the United States, it is great to see that kind of support.
PBC: Being in Russia, you guys don’t have the numbers of players that we in the United States do. You guys don’t have the talent pool that most of the US and European teams have access to draw off of, yet the Russian Legion still manages to compete. It is amazing, how do you find the players that you have? 
Leonov: Well its not really easy cuz it takes a lot of commitment from those guys that want to play for the Russian Legion but we’ve developed a great selection system among the Russian guys. Those that are really willing to devote their lives to paintball those who are willing to play hard to be at the top we definitely can give them a try and some of those guys, they just decided to do the tryouts. If we like the person we sign the contract for them to play with us. It is not really easy to find the right guys. You are completely correct that America has the biggest pool for the best players, but we still try to manage somehow but we do our best with what we have and our results show that effort.
PBC: Did you choose Boston or did the League choose that city for you.
Leonov: No we chose Boston, no specific reason, just a big nice city.
PBC: Do you guys practice strictly back home or do you guys ever come over to the United States to scrimmage or practice?
Leonov: Well what happens is we’ll usually get here a week before the tournament starts and try to arrange a team to practice with us, preferably an NXL team, so it usually happens a weekend before the tournament starts. We usually come that Sunday before to help the guys adjust with the time difference and to arrange a scrimmage before the tournament starts.
PBC: Anything that you want to say to your fans out there?
Leonov: Well I definitely appreciate the support from all the fans, me and the guys all appreciate it we are  gonna continue playing with our hearts, we are gonna continue to play a fair game we want to display the standards for paintball, and that we hope that everybody will support the Russian Legion in the future. We are really grateful about it. I am really grateful for the guys that are playing.
At the Orlando Open Boston Red Legion won all of their matches with a total of 45 points. Their opponents could only muster a total of 27 points against the Russians.
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