syrsoN: "Our chances to qualify for Pro League are still pretty good"

We caught up with Florian "⁠syrsoN⁠" Rische following Sprout's loss to Vitality in the EU MDL Season 31 Finals to talk about the team's recent results, upcoming Minor run, and expectations for the future.

Sprout missed out on direct qualification for ESL Pro League Season 10 following a 2-0 loss to Vitality in the grand finals of ESEA MDL Season 31, sending them over to the relegation stage alongside the likes of Ninjas in Pyjamas and Windigo.

Dust2.us' Collin "CarbonDogma" Davis caught up with Sprout's AWPer to discuss the team's game plan heading into their match against the Frenchmen, as well as how the team are feeling heading into the upcoming Europe Minor.

I wanted to talk about the game against Vitality you just had, you started off in the lead on map one, but ended up losing it in the end. What do you think happened for Vitality to end up coming back on that map?

I think we dominated them really well. We know that Overpass isn't our best map, we were fine with 10-5, but we kind of struggled a bit against their double AWPs. We had a good game plan to punish them on B, but the double AWPs just fu**ed us up in the end. It was a bit unlucky to lose it, in my opinion we should have won it, but it happens. We managed to come back to the overtime, but in the end no doubt they were better.

You still got double digits on the second map as well, so was it disappointing to end up losing 0-2?

Yeah for sure, it was disappointing for us, but in the end they are a top two team in the world right now. We will just rewatch the game, learn from our mistakes, and we will be better next time.

Going backwards a little bit in time, at the Minor qualifier, in your first match you ended up losing to BIG, who had just signed denis. How was it playing against them with your new lineup?

I think it was a different game than usual. I would say it's not a rivalry, but we really wanted to beat them. In the end, it didn't happen, but we were focused all game. I think maybe we were a bit too nervous to play against them, so we made a lot of mistakes and the communication was not that good as in the other games before. We were a little bit chaotic, I would say. If we don't do that the next time I think we will beat them.

In the lower bracket you still took down OpTic to be able to secure your spot. Did you expect to beat them to move on?

Yeah I think so, because we had played OpTic before, and we had beaten them there also. We had a good game plan against them, we felt comfortable, so everyone knew that we would beat OpTic.

Looking forward at the Global Challenge here, what are your goals for the rest of the event?

Our goal should be to get revenge against Vitality, so maybe we can beat them.

At the Minor, you are in a group with mousesports, CR4ZY and NoChance. What are your expectations going into the Minor?

It's a really tough group I would say. Our expectation is for sure to get through the group, but it's going to be really hard, we have really good teams in our group. In the first game, we will meet CR4ZY and anything can happen because it's best-of-one. If we win, we will have to play really well against probably mousesports, I don't know. If we lost, we will still have another chance against NoChance, maybe.

Since you lost to Vitality here you'll be in in the Pro League relegation stage. Against teams like Windigo, the new Heretics, Spirit - how do you think your chances are of still making EPL?

Our chances are pretty decent because Windigo had lineup changes. I think NiP will do it for sure, they will qualify for the Pro League again, so we will probably meet up against Windigo or Heretics. They also changed a player I think-

Yeah, they got jeyN.

Yeah, so I would say our chances are pretty good to beat all of them and qualify for the Pro League.