Samuelsson: "We've played five tournaments together and had five top-fours; that's the consistency we're striving for"

We got the chance to talk to Andreas "⁠Samuelsson⁠" Samuelsson fresh off fnatic's 1-2 loss to G2 in the semi-finals of IEM Katowice.

The coach walked us through the Swedes' losses on Inferno and Train against G2 and explained what happened in the final rounds of the two maps, when the Frenchmen caught fnatic off-guard with low buys to finish them off each time.

While disappointed about the semi-final result, Samuelsson was still positive about his team's run as a whole at their first LAN showing in 2020 following a long break, highlighting the incredible consistency that has seen them finish in the top four at all five events.

Fresh off the G2 loss, can you talk me through the struggles on Inferno and Train, where they had your number for most of the maps?

I think we had five really bad starts, it was really hard for us to gain some momentum in the beginning, but we showed really good mental strength to always grind back in the half. It was three really close maps and really close rounds make a big difference.

On both maps you lost you had some perhaps uncharacteristic final rounds where G2 managed to close it, both with rather shoddy buys. First of all on Inferno, it was a semi-rush B that looked like it caught you off-guard...

They did a lot of random rushes against us in this series. A lot of rushes B on Dust2, B on Inferno, even on Train as well that caught us off-guard. We did expect it, but not that much. They have shown that before, but not as much, they just spammed the site where they were successful.

On Train, they kept spamming the B bombsite, had success on it, and the last round on Train... We knew that they can make sound in alley and go three inside, but it was a good round for them to do it. Kenny took a lot of attention when he was behind the train, so we couldn't kill him immediately. If we killed him immediately, we would have immediately known it was a fake, but they got a lot of time inside to do the plant. It's the pressure, they had 15 rounds, we molotoved lower in the retake and, of course, one should hold higher, but shit happens when there's a lot of pressure.

G2 have been running through the competition so far, what did you think were their biggest strengths?

For me, they have really good teamplay both as T and CT, they are trading really well when they go as T, they really go together, they try to find good opportunities. Same on the CT side, if we manage to kill one the next one is there in one second and kill two, so they have really good teamplay. And I think that they worked a lot on their communication, and that's what we're seeing now. For me, at least, G2 will be a team to look out for in 2020.

This was your first event of the year after a long break and you managed to pull off another strong top-four finish. It's obvious you're disappointed now immediately after the loss, but how do you look back at the entire run?

Today I am very disappointed, of course, because, for me, we were as strong as G2, but they managed to finish it and they deserve it, but we could have grabbed the victory. We had 78 days off, I think, so you never know, and we had a really good run last year, so it's super-positive for me that we have played five tournaments together and five top-fours. That's the sick consistency we're striving for. To be honest, I'm very happy about this tournament.

I asked flusha about this, whether there was some sort of secret or a way you consciously approached coming back into play after such a long time, were you unsure about how that was going to pan out?

When you're traveling all the time, you're home for five, six days, travel, back home for five, six days, then travel to the next one, you know where you are all the time. You can make small changes but you still know where you are. But when you're home for 80 days, you can't know, you can prepare as much as you want, you can practice as much as you want, but practice and officials are two different things. So you never know, that's why I'm really happy about the top four here.