MAJ3R on tough schedule: "It's mentally and physically difficult, but we are professionals"

The Turkish IGL talked about Eternal Fire's goals and their exhausting schedule.

Eternal Fire have made a multitude of roster changes in recent times, with their roster going through several different iterations. The Turkish superteam signed VALORANT-returnees Ahmet "⁠paz⁠" Karahoca and Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli in July of last year, but they held their place in the team for just three months.

After MAJ3R was removed from the team he announced his retirement, but soon found himself back on the active roster after the team removed Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker in favor of Yasin "⁠xfl0ud⁠" Koç. Eternal Fire now come into the new season with high expectations, looking to do well at the CCT Central Europe Finals and take the momentum into the Major cycle and ESL Pro League.

Following Eternal Fire's 2-0 win over HONORIS, the Turkish IGL sat down with HLTV.org for a quick chat about their form and expectations, as well as their hectic schedule.

So first of all, I would like to ask you about yesterday's game against the Bad News Eagles. It was a very close game, where you lost out. What do you think went wrong in that game?

The matches against BNE are always really intense. We always lose 16-14 against them, strangely. I think what we missed are the small details. We lost some clutch situations, we lost a lot of forcebuys when they had only Tec-9s. Small details made the difference in this game, and congrats to them. But the goal now is to beat forZe and pass the group stage.

Today you met with HONORIS and it was a quite easy 2-0 victory with you having two very good CT sides. Did it feel comfortable for you on the server?

I don't think it was easy. I cannot say it was an easy match because Overpass was 8-1. We did a pretty decent T side on Nuke, I think we won five rounds, but we did a good CT side. Like you say, both CT sides were very good today, I'm happy with that. The T sides actually, I think for this morning, we missed a lot of firepower. And also maybe some tactical issues, but we will try to fix them. So our T sides should be better, but I'm happy overall about our CT sides and now we have another match against forZe, let's see.

So you mentioned that you lacked a bit of firepower today. Do you think that is because of playing the RMR Closed Qualifier at the same time? Is that tough for you?

I think we have a really difficult schedule. I think not only us but for HONORIS also because they play the Closed Qualifier, as well. So I will give an example. Today we have played two maps against HONORIS, then we're going to play two or three maps again forZe, and then we have again two maps in the Major tonight. Yesterday it was the same. We played BNE, then we played two matches at BLAST.

I think it's mentally and physically difficult, to be honest. But we are professionals and we need to take care of ourselves. To answer your question, yeah, I think the schedule made us not very good this morning because we are tired. But we did our best. We didn't have time to deathmatch before this match. We started really quick, so we didn't deathmatch, we didn't do aim bots, so I think our firepower was bad because of that.

Okay, so now going back a bit to last year when you joined the team, the roster went through several changes with Calyx, xfl0ud, and paz all switching places. How did that year feel for you?

Yeah, the situation and the history of Eternal Fire switching players is that there were a lot of player changes in their history. Today I'm happy where I am. Obviously, we need to work, we have a lot of things to fix. But I have hope, I always have hope. So I think with time and with work, things can get better, and we have the potential to do it. I believe in myself and I think we can do great things if we work really hard, to be honest.

You mentioned you want to achieve your goals, but what are your goals for this year as a team?

Our goal is obviously to go to Major, to do great in EPL, and to go to every LAN tournament that we can, play good teams, and play good CS. My goal always in every match is to play good CS. I want a high standard, it's my mentality, I always want the best. So for me, it's match by match for one year, where we need to win everything we can. If we lose, we lose. But if we lose, we need to learn from it and just step back from it. But the main goal is Major and EPL.