nawwk: "I think the nerves got to us; FURIA have a bit more experience"

The Swedish AWPer opened up about the loss in the grand final and what this run means for his team's future.

Apeks finished Elisa Masters Espoo in second place following a 3-1 loss to FURIA in the grand final. The team will have little time to lick its wounds, however, with its first match in the ESL Challenger League playoffs scheduled for Tuesday. Later this month, it will also travel to the United States to compete in ESL Challenger Atlanta.

After the final, tournament MVP Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson sat down with HLTV and shared his thoughts on the title decider, stating that FURIA's greater LAN experience gave them the edge in the series. He also discussed the rumors linking him with an all-Swedish team and the impact that this grand final appearance will have on Apeks.

If the embed above does not show for you, listen to the audio version here.

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How are you feeling after that grand final?

Of course it feels bad, but if you’re going to look on the bright side, which we tried to do, at least we got to the final, you know? I think no one expected us to even win a game in this tournament, so at least there’s something.

What do you think caused you to fall short today?

This is our first final. No one has won a big event, if you know what I mean, so I think the nerves got to us, to be honest. They have a bit more experience, and it worked in their favor.

There’s been a bit of talk about how Apeks have changed up their approach. Obviously, you have got the sports psychologist in. Does this result give you confidence that you are moving in the right direction?

Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think right now it hurts and we’re all really sad, but in the end we got to the final and we put up a decent fight, it wasn’t a blowout or anything like that. I guess we’re a tiny bit happy, at least.

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There was some talk recently that hampus wanted to put together a Swedish team, your name was thrown around, but you ended up committing to Apeks. What pushed you into that decision? Why did you decide to commit your future to Apeks?

The Swedish team was, of course, a little bit exciting, going back to Swedish, but in the end, I was happy with Apeks. They’ve been treating me well for two years, not like some other organizations (wry smile), so I wanted to stay and keep performing well.

Looking towards the future, where do you think this Apeks team can go? What are the goals now?

Now we have come to a final, the next goal must be to win a tournament right? So we are going for that.