coachi: "These players in my team, I believe some of them will be the best players in the world in the future"

We had a chat with Sharks' coach, Hélder "coachi" Sancho, in Dallas to reflect on the team's first big experience and find out more about their recent return to Brazil as well as their goals for the future.

In their first appearance at a large-scale tournament, Sharks were able to put up surprisingly close results against MOUZ and Cloud9 and even take a map off the latter team in their elimination match.

We caught up with their coach, Hélder "⁠coachi⁠" Sancho, to talk about ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals and Sharks's results there. We also quizzed the former k1ck player about the Brazilian scene, which the team left for an extended period of time as they resided in Portugal until recently, and asked him about their return to Brazil at the beginning of the year.

How has your first big-event experience been and how do you feel about what you've shown here?

The experience overall was amazing, these tournaments have developed so much. We were expecting such professional staff and everything, but we were impressed with how everything went. It was really awesome.

We were kind of happy that we at least played good CS, but we weren't happy at all with the result. We really wanted to come here and eliminate one of those teams. We are pretty sure they didn't count on us to do some damage, but we really believed we could beat them. To this point, we believe we made really rookie mistakes - as it was supposed to be, as everyone expected - that cost us both matches. I think we could have won both matches.

Both of your matches were close, so what do you think you have been missing to close them out?

Against mousesports, I think we could have went for an 11-4, 12-3 half as Terrorists, I really do. We were winning 6-0 and then chrisJ won that round, 1v3 in the smoke. That was the key point, but not only that, after that round, there were a bunch of clutch rounds and in most of them we had the advantage. We could break their economy and make a half that they wouldn't be able to come back from.

I think the lack of experience in our team, maybe, I guess we are not only the underdogs in the first time, but the team with the age average that is probably the lowest, I think that cost us that match. With more experience, I think at the next event, when we get into those situations again, we will win them.

Can you tell me about jnt's transition from a hybrid into a full-time AWPer and how he's been adapting to that?

jnt wasn't even competing when we hired him, he's a very talented player, but he was never an AWPer, not even a hybrid. He was just a rifler, a good one. We took him as a secondary AWPer, but then we felt we needed some more firepower, we went for RCF, and then we needed an AWPer, so jnt started trying it out. But he is an AWPer for two months and he has improved so much, everyone in the team is really impressed, we can only imagine what he can achieve when he has more time as an AWPer.

We have seen Brazil's best teams players leave the region and move to North America, starting with SK of course, then Immortals and Luminosity. Do you feel like there is still enough experience in the region to make it grow? Can it still produce more teams that can compete for the top-tier?

Yeah, I definitely believe that. What I'm seeing from Brazil, I think they are the most talented region in the world when we talk about CS. We see FURIA, they have spacca that is an experienced player, but they have really good youngsters. What I think is that the most talented players from Brazil are still there. After SK, the other teams that are out of Brazil, I don't feel like they are the most talented players in Brazil.

I guess those teams are going to get behind Sharks and FURIA in the future, I think we have more skilled players than the other teams, if we take out SK. That surprised me a lot and I wasn't expecting that when I searched for these players in Brazil and started digging more into the scene, I wasn't expecting so much talent. These players in my team, I believe some of them will be the best players in the world in the future.

Now that you've come up as one of the best teams in the region, having the talented players, have you received any offers from the Brazilian teams that have left the region? Has there ever been a threat that you could lose one of your players to them?

Yeah, I cannot talk openly about this, but we have received offers for our players from the big teams. In the end, we weren't able to reach an agreement with those big teams. The thing is, there is only one team that the players won't refuse and that is SK.

In my team, every player believes we can be the second-best team of Brazilian players, if we aren't already the second-best, so if it's not SK knocking on the door, I don't think there is a chance for them to leave because the team really believes in itself. But yeah, it always depends on the salaries, the buyouts, and all, everything is more professional nowadays. So, we did receive many offers for more than one player, but it didn't come true.

You've recently returned to Brazil after spending an extended period of time in Portugal. Why? Was that your own choice?

We were taking care of visas. The team had to stay in Brazil, then the Brazilian scene suddenly had a bunch of big events, tournaments organizers talked to us and asked us to stay and play those events. We talked about it 'those are good events, let's stay and play, let's win them to be able to play in tournaments like this one.' That's why we decided to stay there.

But we're not going to be fixed to one region, we are kind of a hybrid team, we are going to be in Portugal, we are going to be in Brazil, it depends because in Portugal, we can't play the Minors and all, so we are a Brazilian team, but we will be coming to Portugal to practice, play events there, and if there are good events in South America, we will go there, or to North America. It's going to be a different concept, there's not a team in the world that will do what we're planning to do in terms of a location.

What is the difference between staying in Portugal and Brazil, is it mostly the level of practice?

Sure, it's the practice. In Portugal, you can practice all the European teams. In Brazil, as you said before, teams are leaving to NA all the time, now FURIA is probably also leaving, so you don't have that many teams to practice in Brazil. The good ones, you're going to be practicing against your best opponents all the time, so you can't really show everything in practice, so that's why it's better for our team to practice in Portugal.

What will be Sharks' goals in the next couple of months?

When we came here, everyone was looking at us as underdogs. We managed to win one map and it kind of felt like we messed up. Next time, we will still be underdogs, but there will be an upset, next time we are going to beat someone big. I'm telling you this right now because people will say it's an upset, but upsets don't happen if you don't have a lot of quality.

My players are 17-21 years old and they are crazy skilled guys, we need some more development in the tactical aspect, and me and nak are doing our best on that front, but we believe we are going to be a tier one team, that's what we are looking for, that's what we're aiming for. It's tough because we need invites for events and all, but it felt like people wanted to know about us, all the teams here were telling us 'you guys play really good,' the tier one teams were coming to us to ask for practice all the time, so people didn't feel like this was an exception. People felt we are good and we want to keep that.