ruggah: "We ran out of steam during the last half of the season"

The Danish coach discussed Astralis' inconsistency and their goals for IEM Cologne after their opening day win against 9z.

Astralis booked a spot in Group A's upper semi-finals at IEM Cologne thanks to a convincing 2-0 victory against 9z. The Danish team were made to work hard to win on Dust2, but they came out on top in the early exchanges on Inferno and never let up on the gas.

IEM Cologne provides Astralis with the opportunity to show that they can dance with the best now that the hype accompanying Alexander "⁠br0⁠" Bro's arrival and Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz's transition to IGL has died down. The team come to the event in Germany after finishing top-four at YaLLa Compass and top-six at the BLAST Premier Spring Final before the summer break.

"We invested a lot of time and resources to get the train going, to climb the rankings and get to play all the tier-one events after the player break," Casper "⁠ruggah⁠" Due told HLTV after the win against 9z. "This also meant that we lost the energy and the ability to refresh our playbook and go into details with things.

"The last half of the season, we wanted to do better, but I think that, at the end of the day, we just ran out of steam because we had to play everything to climb the rankings."

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2024
11/08/2024	Astralis 16:40 Natus Vincere	Match

With Astralis currently inside the top 10, the plan is to to peak at the right time — and that means not just the upcoming Major in Shanghai but also the BLAST Fall Final in Copenhagen, an all-important stop for the Danish team.

"We have already picked our spots in the calendar where we want to, like, take a step back and do some things," ruggah said. "Like, re-do a playbook, look at the trends and the meta so we are strong coming into the Major cycle.

"The BLAST Fall Final is one of the marks in the calendar we are looking forward to a lot. It's been a while since Astralis have been able to have fans cheering for us on home soil. So, hopefully, we get that one minimum win in the groups to go there. We are pretty hyped for that one."

In an interview with Dust2.dk, br0 said that "it's time" for Astralis to reach a final after a handful of quarter-final and semi-final finishes. Asked about his player's comments, ruggah set a more modest goal for Cologne: making it out of the groups.

"I think we showed in the first half of the season that we were competitors and people should respect us and expect us to go to the playoffs," he said. "So that's the ambition we have internally. And we know that, once the playoffs start, anything can happen.

"Even if we start from the quarter-finals, I think we have the chance to compete against anyone. We're happy to get a win here in the beginning. We'll see how far it goes."