FalleN: "Starting to feel a bit of burnout, but the focus is winning the next one"

The Brazilian powerhouse went three for three, picking up the win at ESL One Cologne after victories at DreamHack Open Summer and the ECS Season 3 Finals, defeating Cloud9 3-0 in the grand final in the LANXESS Arena.

SK have felt a bit of burnout in Cologne

SK's in-game leader was also the most valuable player of the tournament, so we talked to him after awarding him his second HLTV.org MVP medal.

With you being in Europe and attending a lot of events recently and in regards to the group stage where you lost two BO1's, was the burnout catching up to you a bit there? Where you a bit tired from staying and competing all the time?

To be honest, I felt a bit of burnout at this tournament, I've even told the guys that for the Major we are not going straight to preparation, we need some days to rest it's a little bit too much to play two or three tournaments in a row, almost every single week we have to compete. So yeah, we felt a little bit of burnout at the beginning and as we realized that, we had a group talk and decided to do a bit of a speech before the matches and during the matches so we could have a little bit more of a team spirit. So we have been starting to feel a bit of burnout, but the focus is winning the next one now. And I think the football (against Virtus.Pro on Monday) is going to help us as well, to take the minds outside of the game a little bit. 

You passed the group stage of course and met OpTic in the quarters. They actually took Mirage off of you, you didn't seem happy about losing that map? Tell me a bit about that.

Yeah, the win against OpTic, and it's nothing about playing OpTic or someone else, it's just a state of mind that I had during the game. That was a combination of a little bit of burnout and the game was very tense, so you mix the two and frustration starts coming in. That is what we've been trying to change for some time. In the semi-final, we went in with a different mentality, only positive things.

After that, the game against FaZe. You've been meeting them a lot, tell me a bit about that match, especially the first game on Overpass, a map you recently struggled on a bit?

FaZe is always such a difficult opponent, They have so much skill and they are very organized. They decided to pick Overpass, and Overpass is a map that we've been working hard on in the recent past because the results weren't so great at a couple of last tournaments. They faced a good team on the CT side, we played almost perfectly, doing a lot of good decisions during the map and they couldn't play Overpass against us.

When we went to Cache, it was a bit unexpected, they played super well, they had a good plan as CT, they tried to delay our mid takes and other things. It took us a little bit of time to realize how we should approach the match against them. When we did that we won in overtime. It was really difficult but the team really wanted that win, and we did everything we could to get it.

Let's just touch on the grand final, especially the second and third map where Cloud9 had good leads but you just came back as it was nothing. Tell me about the comebacks, how did you feel during them?

I think in the first match we had coldzera playing amazingly, on Cobblestone he changed the game for us. The second game, the CT side was a little bit problematic, but we won the T pistol and got rounds going. "Modestly" saying, I was very important in a lot of situations on the Train T side, I was able to hold some bombplants and get some important kills for us. And we did one of the best T sides on Train we ever did. 

On Inferno, they had a huge lead, they were winning very well, we didn't play our best. A couple of mistakes at the beginning of the game from us, some positioning that should be a little bit different, we needed a little bit more force when we were striking sites. And on CT side, it has been a difficult side for us to be honest, so we were a little bit scared of losing that map, but as I said, the mindset needs to be positive, always. So we knew we could do the comeback, we played super well on CT as well. They got two rounds, so it got scary, but we got TACO stepping up and fer doing good plays as well on the B site. I think one of the most important plays was from felps as well, he killed the guy over the smoke on CT and helped us win a 3v2 that was crucial for the game.

The entire series was pretty difficult, I think Cloud9 played super well, despite being 3-0, I think the game was much closer than the score looks like.

Lastly, you won the MVP, of course, winning the tournament is the most important, but between you guys in SK there has been at least bit of joking about coldzera winning all the MVPs. Now you and fer (at ECS S3) picked up two, how is the feeling about that?

The feeling is awesome. To be honest, I think the best thing of this team is that the team is always above the individuals. And that is how it needs to be. So, getting the MVP is cool, but getting the trophy is much more important, I don't care about the MVP medal to be honest. 

About the joke, yeah, it's hard to be the MVP when you play with cold because he might be missing for the entire tournament and then when it matters he just appears. So I'm very surprised that I won the MVP, but I feel like after the plays I had on Train convinced people that I should take it. I'm glad, I'm very happy about it, but it doesn't matter too much for me.