TuGuX: "We are the favorites"

Space Soldiers had a rough day in Paris as both of their best-of-three series went to the third map. In the end, they were victorious against k1ck oldschool and Gambit and advanced to the semi-finals where they will face LDLC

How did you prepare for ESWC? We know that you live in a gaming house so how did the preparation go?

Yes, we live in a gaming house but we had some small problems. Some of my mates were at the World Championship 2016 with Turkey so when they came back they were all tired. It was hard to prepare because when they came back we basically did nothing for five days. But after that we returned to our usual form and we practiced so it was okay in the end.

How did your group stages matches against GEX and Red Instinct go?

Against GEX, the only thing I told my teammates was "We don't know how they play. Maybe they might play in a different style. Just think of every scenario that might occur". They tore us apart in the first round but then we won 16 rounds in a row so that was pretty easy.

Against Red Instinct, we won 16-9 on Nuke but we had so many problems on the CT-side. We had sound issues and we couldn't understand each other clearly. They caught us off guard every single time, like when we were rotating, they just caught and killed us. I think that was luck but it was amazing.

Maybe it was just Nuke?

Yeah, maybe it was just Nuke. So overall, the group stage went really well.

Today you won your Round of 16 match against k1ck oldschool 2-1. How was this match for you?

We played really bad on Mirage where we were leading 13-10 but we somehow lost 16-14. I'll say it was just bad luck. I won't look or analyze the demo of this map because we just had focus issues. Then we just won the last two maps.

In the quarter-final against Gambit, you won the first map but got smashed on the second one. You recovered to win the series. Can you talk us through what happened?

Actually, the funny thing is, Train was their map pick and we won it 16-4. Then Cobblestone was our map pick but we lost 16-4. They played quite good on Cobblestone and focused on the drop room. We knew that but just let them have it in the beginning and we couldn't stop them afterwards. The third map was quite easy for us. Our play on Train is how we should always be, we were really focused. That's our issue actually, we need to get our A-game more often, maybe in 90% of the matches. Then we can win against everyone. So we need to work on that.

Tomorrow you will face LDLC in the semi-finals. Do you think you can win that match and later win the whole thing?

I think we are, for sure, the favorites against LDLC. We lost against them on ESEA when we put on a garbage performance. We just need to play our game and if we do that they can't stop us.

Anything you want to add?

I want to thank to the fans for all the support and I also want to thank the Space Soldiers organization and our founder Bünyamin Aydın. Lastly, I hope we will win the tournament.

The Turkish team will play with the Frenchmen tomorrow at 10:00 in order to advance to the grand final.

BenjaCS is a staff writer at HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.