rikz: "The best version [of paiN] is a top five team in the world"

rikz believes the amount of tournaments paiN have been playing in recent times has left the team feeling tired, but he has faith in their peak level.

Despite being ranked higher and slight favourites heading into the matchup, paiN slipped to an 0-2 defeat against Eternal Fire to exit BetBoom Dacha Belgrade in fourth place.

Whilst they are certainly a young team whose stock is trending upwards, paiN have found themselves short of European opposition on multiple occasion in recent months, also dropping out of IEM Cologne to G2 and BLAST Fall Showdown to FaZe.

Henrique "⁠rikz⁠" Waku gave an interview to talk to HLTV about paiN's loss to Eternal Fire, what he thinks is holding his team back from taking the next step, and the peak level he thinks they can hit six months from now.

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed below, you can listen to the interview here.

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What do you think went wrong for you in that series?

I think we had bad decisions on Inferno. We won both pistols but in the middle of the rounds we kinda made bad decisions, like when we are getting too much pressure on the CT side we need to ask for help and communicate better, and we didn't do that. We had banana control in a lot of rounds, but we couldn't make it good for the team, we couldn't express it in winning rounds for us.

We were playing too slow, we lost two rounds in a row to the round timer, so we needed to play fast sometimes, think faster and take action, not wait for the IGL to call something. We needed to be more proactive individually, everybody, we needed to take spaces faster, and then have more calm to execute in the final part of the round.

Do you think it was mental, do you think there was pressure and that's what caused the problem?

I think that we had psychological or mental problems today. It's not a usual thing, I think we are all tired because of all the time we are in Europe traveling and playing. Since the player break we are playing tournaments every week, in Brazil and in Europe, and then you reach a time that your mental is not strong enough. We reached that today, but we will reset and come back stronger.

Do you think that's a general disadvantage for your team, the fact you are from Brazil and have to come to Europe to play?

Yeah, we are definitely sad about that. One time we lost in Cologne and we were at the airport with the team that lost at the same time as us. They were taking the plane and they said in two hours they would be at their home, and we were thinking that we would be at home in two days, so we will return to practice in three days. You are losing days and hours from practice, and this holds us back a little.

I don't think that's the main reason, the main reason is that we have a lot of tournaments because we are not ESL partners or partners with any others, so we have to play a lot of small tournaments to be invited, we need to play everything that comes our way. That makes us a little tired in the end.

What do you think your team needs to do, from your point of view as the coach, to take that next step and be a little bit more consistent, and beat some of the better teams in Europe?

First of all, I think we need to continue doing what we are doing. I believe we are a very strong team with a huge organization, and congrats to them all for that. To improve I think we need to start choosing not to play some tournaments, and have more practice.

What do you see as the peak level that your paiN team can reach? Where do you see the best version of paiN being?

I think the best version is a top five team in the world, because we have a lot of young players, nqz is like 18 or 19, snow is 17, everybody came from academy or lower-tier teams. I don't know yet, but we certainly aim for the higher spot.

How long do you think it will take you to get there? Because like you say, you have a lot of young players, so how long before you hit your top level?

I think the top level of us is like six months away. We have been together about a year without snow, and with snow for four or five months. I think we need six more months and we will be ready and have a great map pool.

Looking forwards, particularly towards the Major, what sort of goals have you set for the team?

Yeah, we want to go to the playoffs. At the last Major we were missing out on one match to go to the playoffs, we lost against the champions NAVI and were 2-2 in the Legends Stage, so of course we need to improve a little. Our goal is to go to the playoffs.