apEX: "I understand the people trash-talking us, I just hope they try to understand us because we didn't want to do anything bad"

We had a chat with Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire on day two of IEM Chicago following Vitality's win against Renegades in Group B's elimination match.

We got a hold of the Frenchman to ask him about Vitality's mentality at the ESEA Season 31 Global Challenge last week, where the team's lax approach to their matches caused extensive backlash from the community.

After explaining his team's side of the situation, apEX discussed Vitality's struggles against HEROIC on day one of IEM Chicago and in the group stage of ESL One Cologne, and talked about improvements for day two.

The interview was conducted before the conclusion of the series between ENCE and HEROIC.

There was a lot of backlash for your mentality at the Global Challenge, what did you think about the response from the community?

Coming to the event, I think we didn't have any break for about three months. We had a lot of tournaments, we had things to do for Vitality, so we didn't have a break just to get some rest. Obviously, the Global Challenge wasn't really important for us except the EPL slot, so we decided to just try to get some rest during the event, even if it's not that easy, but get some rest to be ready for this event [IEM Chicago] because it's more important.

I know that it wasn't seen the best way by the community, for sure, and I know they don't understand our decision, but we just wanted to get some rest because we felt like we were really tired even at Cologne. We didn't play our best CS even if we went to the final, mainly individually except for ZywOo. I understand the people trash-talking us, but I just hope they try to understand us because we didn't want to do anything bad, just get some rest and be ready for the next event.

Knowing what the response has been, was it worth it?

I don't know. If we had to do it again, at least we'd think about that, but as I said, I understand the people. We had to find a solution to just clear our minds because three months without a break, it's one of the first times I did that in my whole career and I'm not going to lie, I'm super tired right now.

Shifting over to Chicago, here and back in Cologne you had a couple of tough series against Heroic, this time being on the losing side - what makes it so hard to face them right now?

Even if they're playing super-well, I think the game at Cologne and the game here was pretty much the same, I would say. We didn't play good CS at all, we didn't our play our best CS, at least. We just showed a bad level during the ESL One Cologne group stage and we did the same yesterday. Obviously, they played well, but we just played horribly overall. We knew that they were a dangerous opponent, but I don't know what happened exactly, I couldn't explain, but we were just not very good as a team, mainly. And me, individually, I was terrible.

Is that something you can address for the series later, in which you could play them again? Can you improve on that today?

Obviously, yes. Today was much better, we reset our minds from yesterday, we talked a lot. The thing is, this team needs a lot of energy during the game because when we don't put the right energy in, we just play really badly, and that's what happened yesterday. We just try to keep our energy before the game, and now between the games, just to give everything during the game. And that's a lesson we understood, hopefully we will continue to think about that and if it works, it's the best.