NEO: "Winning like this is a huge boost"

The Polish coach shared his thoughts on a "rollercoaster" of a series after his team made it to the playoffs.

FaZe locked up the final spot at the LANXESS Arena on Tuesday following a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Liquid in a high-octane series where they had to come back from 11-1 down on the decider map, Mirage, after letting two match points slip on Nuke.

Speaking to HLTV after the match, FaZe coach Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski admitted that he was "really mad" that his team didn't close out Nuke but said that he didn't lash out in frustration so as to not ruin the mood for the final map. Despite the hefty half-time deficit, he insisted everyone believed a comeback was possible.

The victory puts FaZe on a collision course with SAW in the quarter-finals, with a semi-final clash with Vitality on the horizon.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2024
16/08/2024	SAW 15:45 FaZe	Match

FaZe have shown in the past that they can shift into a higher gear when they get into playoff mode, and while NEO said that the competition in Cologne is strong, he stressed the impact of this victory on his team's morale. "Winning like this is a huge boost."

NEO, a very crazy series. There was one point towards the end of Mirage where the camera was on you and you were just laughing. What is going through your head right now?

It's really hard to say one thing. This game was full rollercoaster mode. Starting with Nuke, we should have won, there was a 5v3 situation that we lost. And I was actually really mad after losing Nuke because it should have been our map. But the mood was okay. It was all fine, the guys were laughing, so, like, I took a step back and didn't even say a thing.

It got to Mirage and we all know how it started. It was another surprise start. One-eleven. That was a disaster of a half for us. Surprisingly, the mood was not terrible. The guys started laughing a little bit. I wasn't feeling funny at the time. But yeah, I had to accept it, I guess, and go with the flow. The funny thing was that everybody believed, you know? We feel that we have been playing really good CS. It was a small mistake on Nuke, or a huge one, actually. We won in the end, that's what matters.

At half-time on Mirage, someone said, "We only have 12 rounds to go," and everyone started laughing. What was the mindset heading into the first half? There was also the pistol, where broky started flipping them off and rain was laughing. Did the players really believe at the time that the comeback was possible? Or were you simply trying to get as many rounds as possible?

Yeah, yeah. You always take it step by step, right? It's the first round, then the second round, then the third… It's incredible. The thing is that we all believed, I think, we could still win, even though we were down 11-1. I think the guys felt confident and also frustrated at some point even, that it had got to a score like this. So yeah, they kept winning, round by round, and Robin played an insane map. It worked out in the end.

It was a much-needed performance from ropz, who has struggled recently. Here he had a key performance at a crucial moment.

Yeah, for sure. He has been stepping up recently. He has had some good games this tournament. I think it's just adjustments that have to be made, and he's been doing a great job talking about stuff within our game plans and how to make him feel more comfortable in the game. It's a day-to-day work, and it's showing results.

I was watching the post-match interview, and karrigan said he's back to micromanaging. What can you say about that and the changes to the system?

When you get to the top, people study you. We got to a couple of finals recently and people were more aware of what we're doing, and we started changing small things. I would say things have got back to normal, finally. He's really good at in-game leading, he has done that in the past. He knows how to do it and that's when the team has played really well. He makes good calls but everyone can step up at some point and we all connect.

You're now through to the playoffs. And we all know how good FaZe can be when you get into playoff mode. What kind of impact do you think that this victory can have on the team? And do you think that it can bring back some of the FaZe magic?

Personally, I think we've seen some FaZe magic already, especially in this game. We've improved our game quite a lot, actually. We're playing good CS here, but I think winning like this is a huge boost. The competition is strong. NAVI is very stable, a great team. G2 has been having impressive results. And Vitality and MOUZ play really good CS, as always. So it won't be easy, but this kind of win gives us an extra boost of confidence, I guess.