coldzera: "I'm pushing [my players] hard and they're following"

Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David chatted with HLTV after his 00NATION committed the biggest upset of the Americas RMR so far, defeating Liquid in their opening match.

coldzera's 00NATION punched well above their weight in the opening round of the Americas RMR, beating Liquid amply 16-8 on Dust2 to join the 1-0 pool, where they will face another of the Swiss group's contenders to qualify for the Major, Complexity.

The Brazilian in-game leader sat down to talk about the match itself, as well as what the team has been up to in the past few weeks, training for the Major-qualifying event in Romania after a spat of bad results while playing online.

The 27-year-old veteran also dug into the inner workings of his team and its players, their changes in approach to the game, and how he ended up putting it together after going in a different direction than his former teammates that went on to create Imperial — which he did in order to continue living in Europe while taking a new generation of players under his wing.

Biggest upset of the tournament so far beating Liquid. Many were doubting 00Nation and how you'd show up here, what do you have to say about this match?

I'm going to say the same thing I always say, when you play on the internet people have more freedom. They play without respect, they have more balls. Here on LAN people play more according to the situation. The game against Liquid was kind of tough but we came really prepared. We had three weeks to prepare against them and we knew it was going to be either Mirage or Dust2, so we prepared those two and we were very confident in our Dust2.

We swapped a lot of things in these three weeks, so if they watched us playing in the past it's a different game, right? So they were probably expecting a different game. For them it was probably hard as well because they came from Pro League and didn't have as much time to prepare. They looked a bit exhausted when they came the first day so it has to be a bit stressful for them. The game was kind of tough, but at the same time I felt like we were in control in every situation.

Tell me about these three weeks, because you played a lot when you first got together and lost to a lot of teams that on paper you shouldn't have been losing against. What was the first months together like and what changed in these weeks?

We were trying to find the system we should play as a team, so the in the beginning I tried to give the players more freedom to play more default and choose more things and call on the fly. For the first month it was kind of good, everyone grew really hard, but when we started to loose they lost a bit of confidence and we started to be a bit shaky. Me and righi spoke about how we should change things and we started to play a bit more robotic.

We have the beginning, the middle and the end of the round, so the situations are going to go according to what we have. So if we're playing default in Dust2 and get long control, we go there and exec. If they play weak on B, we know how to explode B, so we always have something set and it's not just on the fly anymore. We're more confident playing this style because it's not shaky and something is always going to work. Everyone agrees on how we're supposed to play and things are starting to get better.

How is it for you, leading? Are you comfortable with this tighter, more robotic way of playing?

Yeah, sure. I was always the second caller in SK, right? So I don't have any problem calling. Most of the calls today on the fly, when we were in 3vs3 or 4vs3, were mine, so I knew exactly what we should do. I was just calling, they were following and we won a lot of rounds because of that. I know how to adjust mid round and how to use the things we have set, as well. I have four guys that have insane aim and I have the brain, and if I have the chance to win clutches, I'm going to win clutches.

And on LAN I feel more confident calling because I know people aren't going to be running around like crazy, overpeeking a lot, they're going to play normal CS.

We were talking and tier three-four CS is much harder to play than tier one-two, I've played in both and I can say that playing these lower rank teams online is harder because they're going to test you every time. Duels, duels, duels, and if you fail in the duel, they'll have the advantage and continue to overpeek, so it's hard to have map control or execute something. But on LAN I feel more comfortable because no one does that.

The classic Coca-Cola meme, right?

Yeah, kind of. Right? [laughs]

leo_drk and vsm have been around and established in Brazil, and everyone knew they were up and coming. try and malbsMd as well, although they're a bit younger. So how is it for them, playing with a guy like you, it's a big step in their career. How has the adaptation been?

The adaptation we had, like when I first met leo, I had a big impression of him. When they were playing in their old team they were playing looser and he had a lot of problems with communication, so one thing I started to work with him is on communication, not panicking and just being more calm. Today he did a great job. I had big expectations for vsm, he's a very good aimer and a smart player, and he keeps impressing me every timw we play. Both had good fundamentals, but they were disorganized, and I'm helping them organize their fundamentals.

I didn't have any problems with try, he's sometimes a bit slow with communication because of the language, but I think he adapted pretty well. malbsMd speaks pretty good Portuguese so I didn't have any problems with him, although at first it was a bit hard for him to understand because when we speak fast Portuguese it's a bit hard to understand, but I think he adapted very well according to the situation. I have big impressions of both because both are good aimers, they have the skill, but they just need to organize their mindset — the way they want to play, the style — and that's one thing I'm trying to figure out with them.

One thing is good because I have a big voice in the team and people respect me a lot. That's a good thing because I force them to play more CS than normal. That's a good thing because when I was young I did that and it worked for my life, for my game, and I started to become really good, so I'm trying to do the same with them. I'm pushing them hard and they're following, they're playing really well.

Now they just need to get that experience.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. This tournament is going to be good. I told them that it doesn't matter if we win or not, if we qualify or not, the good thing is that they're going to get experience and that's what matters the most. You always need to learn something from tournaments like this.

I've already played so many tournaments like this one and I learned a lot. So when I play clutches I never panic or get stressed, I just play calm and according to the situation. I told them 'just try to become the best you can during the tournament and put it into your game and your game sense, and you're going to be complete as players.'

Before coming to the tournament, what were your expectations after being so shaky online?

That's the thing I told them, right? When we knew we were going to play Liquid, I told them, 'this is going to be a tough game, but if we win we're going to go bigger. If we lose we're going to be fine because they're good. They're a good team.' So we didn't have any expectation from the first game, we don't have any expectation from the tournament.

We're just here to do a good job, get a good atmosphere inside the team because we're not doing well on the internet, and do the best we can whether we qualify or not. The good thing for us is to absorb everything we can absorb here and implement it into our game.

Imperial are here. You're here. There's a lot of talk about that. Would you like to play them?

Yeah, for sure. I think it would be nice to play Imperial. I think it would be a good test for us. I speak for myself, I think it would be a nice game and I think I want to play against them at some point. I think everyone inside the team wants to play against them at some point, as well. But everything was fine, I didn't have any clash with them. We just followed different paths, right? They wanted to live in North America and I want to live in Europe.

When you have a chance to live in a country that's not Brazil and get residence and have a passport after five years, that's a big chance to grow as a man and as a human. I don't think just about CS anymore, I think about my future too. I have a girlfriend, and she'll probably be my wife, as well. So I think about my future and for me it was really important to be in Europe.

So was being in Europe the most important aspect, more than say the philosophy of getting together a young team against playing in a more established 'Last Dance' project?

I think it was both things, I want to be in Europe and I need to have a team. 00Nation wanted to talk to me about building my own team and I thought it was a great idea for me because since I was in Europe for a long time and didn't play for any Brazilian team, I was thinking about making my own team. I chose the pieces that I wanted to have and for me that was nice because of course I'm not going to play forever, right? Maybe two or three more years.

I'm a bit exhausted, as well, so I just want to help them become the best version of themselves and try to guide them to the future. After that I will probably be a part of the organization and I can help them in another way, so the only thing I'm doing now is trying to teach them how to play better CS and be better humans.

When we spoke about new players, I think that when I decided on this... Because at first I was going to join them [Imperial], but because of this NA/Europe clash, I thought that if things would work out I would live in NA, but that wasn't the team I wanted and especially because the scene there isn't very good, it's a bit shaky there.

In the end I think it was just different paths. They're good where they are, and I'm good where I'm at.