zonic talks Vitality's shaky Rio form: "We tried to put away some of the pressure, but it got to us a little bit"

Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen discusses Vitality's shaky form at the Major so far as the team heads into a do-or-die final round.

After four rounds of play in the IEM Rio Major Challengers Stage, Vitality are 2-2. The team currently ranked second in the world have so far been unable to live up to their status of one of the favorites of the tournament, losing to GamerLegion and Outsiders on the first two days of play.

After Vitality swept Grayhound aside in the fourth round, HLTV.org spoke to the coach, zonic, to discuss his team's shaky form in Rio. The Dane admitted that the team has felt the pressure of being one of the favorites before delving into the issues they have faced in their matches.

"The pressure got to us a little bit," he explained. "It's difficult to pinpoint where it goes wrong, but it just feels like all the good things we've been doing lately dropped off by 10% in terms of communication, individual skills, teamplay, and we just have to work our way out of it."

The coach addressed the two losses, saying Vitality should not have played the game on GamerLegion's terms and that, in hindsight, letting Overpass through against Outsiders might not have been the correct call.

You can read the full interview below to see zonic's thoughts on Vitality's issues in Rio so far:

Well... It hasn't been the easiest road for you so far, has it?

No, no. I think, obviously, going into this tournament, becoming one of the favorites is... We tried to put away some of the pressure, but it's true that we didn't feel like the No. 1 team in the world, it takes a bit more, and it just feels like it's a special tournament and we want to do good, but the pressure got to us a little bit. It's difficult to pinpoint where it goes wrong, but it just feels like all the good things we've been doing lately dropped off by 10% in terms of communication, individual skills, teamplay, and we just have to work our way out of it.

We've been having some really good talks yesterday, and we're still not there yet — nothing to say bad about Grayhound, they played a pretty decent tournament compared to what people expected of them, but we can definitely play better. One step at a time and then hopefully we can win tomorrow as well.

What has been the biggest learning so far in terms of some of the losses that you suffered?

I think the game against GamerLegion, it's a team who really likes to fight and we made the big mistake of taking the fights to them. We played the game that they want to play, they want to be able to take duels. They have pretty good individual players, they do some aggressive moves, even acoR is playing quite aggressive with the AWP, and we kinda accepted playing on their terms, when we should have just played more passive, play with utility, get the information and step away and then take it from there.

Against Outsiders, we saw that they didn't play that much Overpass and it has been a pretty good map for us as a whole. They played pretty good and they also demolished fnatic on Overpass, so in hindsight it was probably the wrong map to go against them, but we have a lot of history against them. It was just tough, and as I said before, it feels like we lost 10% of a lot of things in terms of our playbook and teamplay and stuff like that. But we're grinding our way back, hopefully.

Speaking of Overpass against Outsiders, were you surprised to see that they went that way after they played it just once or twice in recent history?

Both yes and no. We were obviously prepared, but there was not that much data and we thought we could slip it away by banning Mirage and Inferno. Historically, we've had some close games against them, we have been picking Dust2, but I think they got 13, 12 rounds in each game, and also on Mirage it has been close. Inferno, we know they are a tough opponent to play against on Inferno even though their stats don't look that good. They're good in terms of stacking and it's a style that we don't like to go up against. Credit to them as well, they also played really well in that game, but that's how it is.

GamerLegion have been dangerous to several very strong teams like FaZe and G2 at the RMR. What do you think makes them such an upset machine?

First of all, they play with no respect. That's one of the key factors going in as an underdog. If you crumble and play too passive, you're most likely going to get run over, but they don't respect anyone. They just go in and go aggressive. I remember the famous round against G2 at the RMR, where acoR's just rushing banana, and also against us.

Our big mistake looking back at it, as I said before, was just taking too many fights against them. That's what they want, and for us it's just that we need to punish them when they peek, because it's not like really high tactical level of play, it's just a lot about the individuals taking peeks and not strategic from what I saw, so that was the biggest mistake from myself going into that game. We should have played a lot more structured, using utility a lot faster, and punishing them when they peek us.

I suppose it also didn't help that your stars didn't turn up in that match, a slow game from both ZywOo and Spinx.

Yeah. As I've said many times, we can't just rely on ZywOo all the time, we need to have more firepower, and unfortunately that day was just too many players having an off day. We had a good start, but it was some shaky rounds that could have gone both ways, and they took a timeout and started taking duels, catching off Spinx in middle, and it just snowballed from there and we lost way too many rounds. Then on the T side it was just difficult to regain momentum.

Heading into the final round there could be quite a lot of scary names. What's the biggest thing that you will talk to your team about before you play next?

It comes really down to mental fortitude. I think we showed both at the RMR and especially at EPL that it's one of our strengths, but for me the biggest talking point will definitely be that whoever is going to face us, I know it's most likely going to be a tough match, but them on the other side is also going to be sad and disappointed going up against ZywOo, Spinx, and Magisk. I think my talk is going to be like, 'remember who we are, we are a really good team, in my opinion still one of the best teams in the world - not the best team, and now according to your ranking the second best team, so for me they just need to know who we are. And then, obviously, the other team is most likely going to have a tougher time than we are coming into the game.