caike: "We may not be experienced on the top level, but we've been playing for a long time"

TeamOne continue their run at the WESG World Finals, and after making it through the first two group stages, securing a minimum of $70,000 and a place in the semis, where they will face fnatic.

caike and mch celebrating their big victory

After the game, we interviewed Caike "⁠caike⁠" Costa with the help of his teammate Jean-Michel "⁠mch⁠" D'Oliveira, who acted as a translator. The Brazilian spoke about taking on Cloud9, closing out the upset, and their tournament so far.

I'll start by just asking how you feel after beating Cloud9 and getting into the semi-final?

We are very, very happy right now,we know that they are playing on a higher level than we are but every map, every match, we never give up. We always go all in, with no fear and this is what happened today. We are very proud.

Going back to the group stage you played to get here, the second one. Can you tell me how you felt after getting a map of Space Soldiers, playing 1-1 with ORDER and then winning against Bravado? Did it instill a bit of confidence, were you maybe feeling down?

When we got to the second group stage, we were already playing in that "no fear" mentality, but at the same time, when we saw the group that we got, we knew that we again had a good shot. I think we played a little bit looser, but I also think that we mad a lot of mistakes that we usually don't do. Taking a map off Space Soldiers definitely did boost our confidence a lot, but at the same time, I think we did a lot of mistakes in the match we lost against ORDER. Anyway, we felt that we could do it and here we are.

When you drew Cloud9, what were the first thoughts you had?

When we saw that we were playing against Cloud9, we realized that we ran out of luck. But at the same time, we are here to play against the best, not only at this event but anywhere in the world, we want to play against the best because that is how you improve yourself. When we realized we were going to play Cloud9 we just thought: "Ok, we are playing against the Major winners, let's have fun and do our thing".

Was there any special preparation you did coming in today, demo watching, researching Cloud9?

For this game, we didn't do anything special, but Cloud9 plays in a lot of really big tournaments and they are always at the top, so we are always watching them play, we have an idea of what they like to do, what their strengths are. We didn't do anything special, we were kind of aware of things that they might do, but we just came here and did our thing. We kind of tried to match it up together.

You won the first map against Cloud9, can you talk me through Train and getting the win there?

It was really important for us to win the first force buy after losing the pistol because we didn't let them start winning, so we could grind some CT rounds. But I think that we didn't play a good CT half, however they did a lot of good strats that kind of caught us off guard. At the same time, we know that our T sides on every map are really strong, so we knew that even if we had five or six rounds, we had a good shot at making it on the T side, we felt really comfortable.

Did losing the second map so flat-out hurt your confidence? How did you get back into the series after that?

I think that they played really well and they were definitely the better team on Mirage, we couldn't take advantage on the few opportunities that they gave us, they didn't let us breathe. I think that they were a way better team on that map.

At the same time, we were really relaxed and calm. When we were 1-1, we thought of it as a BO1 on Cache, anything can happen. So we were just like "let's be happy, let's do our thing".

On the last map, you were also down 10-5 at the half and managed to come back. So tell me about the comeback and closing out a big upset, that is something that is very hard for a lot of teams? They choke, get nervous in the end, was that something you had to deal with?

Our T side could have been better, we did some really weird mistakes that we normally don't do, but at the same time, we knew that 10-5 was a score with which we could win. If they were up 13-2 or maybe 12-3, we could be without a chance, but with 10-5 we knew that we just had to win the pistol and start winning.

I think that the reason why we didn't choke is that even though we are not playing on a higher level for a long time—I mean we are just starting with this, this is pretty much our first time—we are experienced players, maybe not that experienced on the top level, but we have been doing this for a long time. I think that individually, we know how to control our nerves, and as a team, we have been in these kinds of situations. We have played a lot of close matches in the past, we were in grand finals and we had to come back from 14-6 and things like that, and we did it. We felt comfortable with the task that we had.

Last question, facing fnatic in the semi-final next, the second favorite now that Cloud9 is out, what are your thoughts?

We reached our goal and we exceeded our expectations. We have no fear at all, we just want to, again, do our thing and have fun. That is what we are going to do. We know that they are really good, but history writes itself.