zonic on BOROS: "He needed to become more professional, and he did"

The Danish coach is set to make his debut with Falcons at BLAST Groups.

Falcons signaled their ambitions with the signing of Lars Robl and Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen from Vitality in early November of last year and made their intentions of building a superteam known to the world.

"I don't think I underestimated it, but I hoped that people would also know that I have high ambitions as a coach," zonic said about the process of building a team that hit several snags along the way, Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač's rejection chief among them.

Ahead of their debut at BLAST Spring Groups, zonic talked to HLTV about the process of assembling the roster and Mohammad "⁠BOROS⁠" Malhas's potential and shortcomings, among many other topics.

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You sit here as the head coach of Falcons, but more importantly, you have a full roster under your leadership. How does it feel to be at this stage of this project?

It feels good. If everyone thought that after I left Vitality, I was just sitting on some vacation, they are terribly mistaken. We've been working 24/7 in assembling a roster that we feel could compete on the highest level. I'm super excited and satisfied to sit with the roster that I have right now, and I'm looking forward to starting the season.

I wanted to ask about this whole process. There were a lot of rumors about who might join, and who won't, but you signed the ENCE core in the end. Can you walk me through the process?

Out of respect for some players, I won't go into too many details, but when I joined, I made a priority list. For example, I had four players that I wanted for the AWP role. For the IGL role, I had two or three players, the same with all the roles. But getting players so close to a Major cycle, with the open qualifier starting in January, meant a lot of teams were hesitant to even negotiate with Falcons.

Even though we paid a fairly decent price for their players, if they sold them, they would not qualify for the Major, and then they would probably lose financially in the end due to the sticker money. So it was very difficult to negotiate with players. When we got some public resistance from some players or teams who made it public that they rejected our offer, it also complicated the process. But in the end, it worked out really well, and we got the ENCE core, which also meant that we were directly through to the RMR and got invited to Katowice. That is super underrated because, in just one year, there will be no more partnership leagues, which means that only the top teams will be getting invites for the big tournaments.

We all know that being part of the tier-two scene, where you have to play open qualifiers, closed qualifiers, and play all the time, is just an unforgiving life. I'm happy to be a part of BLAST and be invited to the big tournaments, now it's only up to ourselves.

There was also a lot of discussion in the community about building teams from scratch. Do you think it's hard to give players a reason to join you when you don't have a full roster or partnership spots?

When you have to negotiate with players like Snappi and Magisk, who were part of great teams already, it is a difficult thing. I don't think I underestimated it, but I hoped that people would also know that I have high ambitions as a coach and [would like] to work with Lars and me, considering we have full freedom to shape the team that we wanted. Lars has been working with both Astralis and Vitality, but he was part of a system there. Whereas here in Falcons, we have just been given the keys to pretty much focus on the players' well-being. This means that our players will have the best conditions.

We will make sure that their trip to overseas tournaments, let's say we're going to Australia, will be business class. We'll have a physiotherapist at all tournaments, working with the players two or three times per week. All the players will have single rooms. The salaries that people are projecting that the players have aren't any higher than what you're seeing people getting in the top teams. We want to differentiate ourselves from the rest by giving the players the maximum conditions for performance, and that is where we want to create a different style compared to some of the other teams.

How important was it for you to first sign Magisk? He's a huge name in the scene and he committed to the project fairly early. Do you think that was a big bargaining chip when you spoke to other players?

Magisk is a really important piece of the puzzle and a very important piece of any team. No matter who he joined, he can play different roles, come up with numbers, play some of the worst spots, and is still reliable. Even though he is not ZywOo or NiKo level stat-wise, he's still putting up really good numbers compared to what roles he has.

That is also why I was really disappointed seeing him only 17th on the ranking. I think he deserved more, he's a lot higher on my list, but it is what it is. He knows how much I value him. He was a big thing in attracting bigger names to the team.

I also wanted to ask about BOROS. He's the only survivor from the previous roster and had an amazing breakout tournament at the Paris Major, but he has a reputation that he doesn't work well in the system. So what can you tell me about your experiences with him so far?

We got told a lot of things and also put a lot of focus on the things that we heard, and I also saw some of the issues myself. But I also felt that when you're part of a system, it's much easier to adapt and learn. He has really impressed me so far. In the beginning, he came late, he didn't respond in time. But then he also learned, he was told that he needed to step up these things and become more professional in a very harsh way, and he did.

When it comes to in-game stuff, he also had a bad reputation except for his aim, and I think it's also down to how you work with him. He's not there fully yet, but he is putting up really strong numbers in practice, and I can definitely see why. We had an eye on him at the RMR, not to get him to Vitality, but he was just one of the guys that everyone was talking about during the tournament when he was playing with Monte.

It didn't matter for him if he was playing on the big stage or playing against good teams, he was just going to go there and take his fights. And I think that's a really strong trait to have as an up-and-coming player. It feels like the bigger stage it is, or the better the opponent he plays against, the better he plays. For me to have such a player is something that I look forward to, but he's young and he still has a long way to go.

What would you say his current role in the team is? Is it more of an entry or more of a star role for him?

It depends on the CT or T side, we have tried to mix it up. Obviously, I can't go into full details, but he and Maden were used to taking a lot of space on the T side. Here, we have tried to fix it, but one of them had to sacrifice a little bit more than the other. If you want to get the most out of BOROS, you also need to not put him in shit roles. He needs to take up the responsibility, and we need to also play for him because he is the guy with the best raw aim on our team. You need to try and work with that to provide the right support for him to shine as much as possible.

You directly qualified for the RMR due to signing the ENCE core. Did that give you a bit more time to implement your system and style on the team?

It gave us more time than if we had to play the open and closed qualifier, but it also meant that we had to under-prioritize BLAST. For example, if we were prioritizing BLAST, we would only play maybe four maps because we knew our opponents, and then we would probably skip some of the maps. We know if Vitality is not going to pick Inferno or whatever, we don't have to play Inferno because there's no chance that we are playing that [against them].

But we decided to focus on all six maps, and we're not coming in as prepared as we would like to. But the big goal here, because we're traveling directly from BLAST to Katowice and the RMR, is to be ready for the RMR. That is our focus point and our ambition for this season.

You have a pretty tough group, and as fate would have it, your two ex-organizations in Astralis and Vitality. How will it feel to be on the other side of the server against both of these teams?

When you're looking at Astralis lately, I think there's no doubt that Vitality and Astralis are the main favorites, with Vitality being the absolute favorite of this group. I'm looking forward to playing against them. It's a bit easier now compared to if it was at the RMR, where we have had time to play and our expectations would be higher.

But right now, I think it's Vitality's group to lose, they have to go through as number one. They're facing three teams who made roster changes or are not there yet. But we will do our best, and we're obviously going in to beat Vitality if we get to face them. But our first game is against Astralis, and that's our focus.

More on a general note, you said that the RMR and the Major are a priority for you guys, but are there any other things that you would like to achieve from now until the player break?

It's too early to say. Right now, we have assembled this roster and tried out with these roles. I had a terrible first year in both Astralis and Vitality, so I would love to try and minimize that with more experience now, having also coached an international roster, but the expectation is to qualify for the Major in Copenhagen. We have Katowice, and hopefully, we can qualify here for the Spring Final in London.

Then our goal is to establish ourselves as a team that can hit playoffs regularly rather than going in and saying okay, we might not win the Major, but we're going to win the next tournament. I think that will be too ambitious for us. I simply need to see what team I have right now because I only have very limited practice to go from, and I will know much more about my team after we play some official games.