friberg: "I've been very harsh on our team, [...] but it's all for the greater good"

The European mixture kicked of their Minor with a strong showing against PRIDE, taking down the Poles 16-3, and then pulled off a CT side comeback against Space Soldiers to go on to the playoffs.

friberg hasn't been sparing his teammates of criticism

Talking to HLTV.org, Adam "⁠friberg⁠" Friberg admitted that his side is pretty comfortable on most of the maps, and that he still has work to do in terms of his in-game leading.

Starting off against PRIDE here, the veto was kind of interesting considering it ended up on Nuke, which is a map that is rarely played, especially in BO1's and you as a team didn't have a lot of Nuke played either. Tell me a bit about the thinking there and your thoughts on Nuke for your team?

We play almost every map and we have a strong map, we are strong on all of these six or seven maps that we play. We kind of want to play a map they don't feel as confident on. Especially here at the Minor, they would most likely try to get one of their favorite maps and we feel confident enough to play all of the maps that we play. For us, it's a lot about playing the maps that maybe they have not played as much.

You got Nuke, in the end it was a pretty straightforward win. How did you see that match panning out from your perspective, do you think that they were caught off guard by the pick a lot?

Yeah, we knew that they wanted to play Train and we knew that it was always going to be Nuke plus one more map in the last part, where we picked. We thought it could've also been Mirage or something, but they banned it. When it was Nuke, I was super confident, I know that me, Magisk and allu have played a lot of Nuke in our previous teams and we practiced a lot on how to communicate, which is one of the key points in playing Nuke, the rotations and everything. So I feel that we are really confident on Nuke, we have a good structure and know how to play the map as T as well.

Tell me about the second map, against Space Soldiers. You ended the first half, the T side of Train with just four rounds, what were the issues there?

I feel like we tried to play a bit too pick heavy, we should've used our utility a lot more. Train is one of those maps where, if they have a lot of utility, full buys with molotovs and everything, you have to pressure them so they waste a lot of utility, but then we also got picked off when we did that. It was a rough half, we just won one weapon round, but once again, as it always is for us, we will learn a lot from every game because we are such a new team.

We have already talked about what we can do if, for example, we play Train here again, how we can change it up. We have a lot of other stuff. I think, for me, maybe the in-game leading wasn't top notch on Train, maybe I should've called differently, but it's also a new thing for me, being the in-game leader, I feel that I made a few mistakes and that we played badly as a team on the T side.

Tell me then about the comeback on CT, what were the key rounds and decisions you made there to come back and win the game?

When we played CT, we knew they like to pressure ivy a lot, so we tried to use two smokes there and make sure to pressure them back. From then on we were super confident on CT, we have played Train a lot, we have two super strong AWPers and Train is an AWP friendly map.

I fell that after we lost the 1-on-1 clutch we knew that they had so low money, and if we win the next round, we probably win the game. And that is exactly what happened because we reset their money completely, they had one AK saved from the 1-on-1 and then 3500 or 3800 on the rest. It's a lot about economy when you play CS now, so we knew that they wouldn't have a lot of utility, that they would do something easy, we won that round and they were completely reset and had to eco.

I just feel like our setups on Train, our rotations and everything was on point, and Magisk playing super strong inside, on B also helped. We have a lot of tips and tricks that we didn't even use on our CT side of Train as well. Train is one of those maps we feel comfortable on, but we still have things to work on the T side.

ImAPet and friberg have been working on the game plan for OpTic together

You mentioned the in-game leading before, as a new in-game leader, what were the biggest issues for you, where did you put in the most effort to improve in these past few months?

I've been dictating a lot in our team, I've been very hard on learning the players, how we should play and how we should communicate, what we should do mid-round. We have of course done a lot of strats and we can fall back to playing a lot of strats, but we've been working a lot on our default, when we rotate and when we do what. Also playing together with each other, revenge fragging and everything like that. And also playing situations, for example, in practice I'm always quiet when I'm dead so I'm letting the other boys talk as well, so they get used to taking initiative and doing their own thing.

I've been very harsh on our team, I'm screaming a lot, I'm flaming them a lot, but it's all for the greater good because I just want us to succeed. I'm very motivated to play and I just feel like we can become a very good team, but it's going to require a lot of hard work. And that is one of the reasons I'm very harsh on my team and I'm screaming at them a lot, but it's only because I want us to succeed.

ImAPet was in a kind of weird situation considering he came into OpTic, then half of the team left and then you formed with a new roster. Back in CLG and in the first OpTic he came in as a saving figure so to say, they accepted him straight on, how has he connected with the players you now have in OpTic and how is that working as a partnership?

He is doing a great job, he hasn't been a pro player before, which a lot of coaches have been, but he has a very good understanding of the game. He is one of the smartest persons I know, he has 200 IQ as they say on Reddit, he really knows what is working against what team, he has really good strats, he is very calm and collected, likes to have a lot of input in the rounds that we do.

He also helped me out a lot when I joined as the in-game leader, me and Chet [ImAPet] have been working really hard on how to play and how to work on several maps. So I think that is one of the strengths of our side, we have five players from five different teams and we all have things from our teams. Like, "when we did this in North it worked really well" Magisk would maybe say, and we would try to do something similar to that or try it out and see if it's working. We have a lot of tips and tricks that we can do since we have so many players from different teams. Chet also watches a lot of demos, he is always prepared and I think our veto is usually pretty strong because he really knows what maps we should play against what teams.

Now you have played your first two matches on LAN, only BO1's but still, the first LAN for your team. How do you feel your team is holding up, what are the first impressions of LAN play?

Yeah, the first LAN with the team, I fell that we are confident. We have been together for 3-4 weeks in Chicago, in our house, so we know each other from bootcamping there and everything. But coming into the LAN it's going to be different for sure, I feel, especially for myself, being the in-game leader on LAN, it's always a bit different to play LAN CS and online CS. I will have to get used to the in-game leading as well, on LAN especially. But I feel confident, I feel that we are having fun and kinda going with the flow we have won a lot of games online, we have played a lot of games online, and now we want to show that we can do the same on LAN.