Aleksib on EPL S18 grand final: "It felt like we were enemies with each other in the team" Interview
2023-10-02 08:49:00NAVI captain Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen revealed that the team was struggling with their mood in the grand final against MOUZ at ESL Pro League Season 18. In the exit interview, he said he felt like his teammates "were enemies with each other." The situation has changed on the last map, Mirage.
We felt like we only played one map here as a team, which was Mirage. Hyping each other up and trying to fully merge with the game, and not let emotions bother us. It felt like waving the white flag in the first two maps. Maybe that just tells they were better prepared, and they didn't let that happen to them. <...>
We made a couple of mistakes, and it felt like we were enemies with each other in the team. That's sometimes crucial in a final. You set the grand final mood, and then, everything goes to the ground and even beyond that. We couldn't dig ourselves out of it quickly enough. We actually felt pretty good in the overtime of Mirage, and we thought we were going to bring it back. We hoped that after the break, we would refocus on the last two maps. But they ended up playing really solid in the overtime.
NAVI lost to MOUZ with a score of 0:3 — Inferno (10:16), Overpass (9:16), Mirage (15:19). ESL Pro League Season 18 was held from August 30 to October 1 in Malta with 32 teams competing for $850,000 and spots at IEM Katowice 2024 and BLAST World Final 2023. This was the last tier-1 LAN staged in CS:GO. The next one will be held in Sydney, running in Counter-Strike 2.
