Jimpphat: "We should not use the excuse of playing on stage again"

The young Finnish rifler believes that MOUZ have put in the work to overcome their angst on stage.

After a slow start to IEM Rio 2024, narrowly overcoming paiN in their opening BO1 before faltering to FURIA in the upper-bracket semi-final, MOUZ have hit their stride, marching past Complexity and FaZe in the lower-bracket to clinch playoffs.

The young international side kept up that lower-bracket momentum in their quarter-final series against Vitality, coming back from a map deficit to secure a 2-1 series win and a semi-final berth, offering MOUZ a rematch with FURIA in front of the home crowd.

Shortly after his team's hard-fought victory over Vitality, Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo spoke with HLTV regarding the close match, the team overcoming their issues with playing on stage, and his thoughts on the impending semi-final against FURIA

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Jimmy, congrats, semi-finals, new Xyp9x, clutch god, what's going on?

Yeah, thank you, I'm feeling pretty happy. It was a tough game but we managed to close it. The game could have ended both ways, but I think the good T side we had on Inferno helped us a lot. I'm really happy and I had some good individual rounds sometimes, it really made me feel like I'm king of the stage, actually. I was playing with a lot of confidence in the moment, so I'm feeling super happy now.

I saw after the game that you were playing up the crowd a little bit as well, something that's a little new for you guys as you're getting over the whole discomfort on stage. How does that feel?

Definitely. I think it's the first time I have done something like it because I want to try something new where I can overcome the... not fear, but I want to play the same as I can in a studio, and this way I try to take everything out of the crowd and just make me feel like I'm the boss. I'm just trying out new ways and it's a bit funny, but now we also have so much experience on the stage as well.

I don't think we are playing that much worse now than in the studio, but there is still some [room for] improvement of course. Today, for example, we played a really great game and I'm super happy about it.

It was a rough start, you lost your pick, but then you won Nuke and came out swinging on Inferno. Can you tell me about the series across the three maps?

Mirage, I don't think the T side was good at all. I feel like we got caught by everything they did and the game was completely in their hands. It was 9-3 in the end and we didn't have much control at any time, but then on CT side it was good we kinda came back a little bit.

We got some rounds in and we just said to the team, 'Let's just get at as many rounds [as possible], we don't care about the win for this map, let's just get some confidence now,' and that's what we did going into the next map. Even though it was their map pick we were really confident and really believed we could still win because we got some confidence in the last half of Mirage.

Nuke was also pretty close, but in the end, we had a really good mentality and didn't give up at any point. After Nuke we basically knew and were really confident that we were going to win this whole series now because we had so much confidence.

And Inferno, what can I say, the T side we were just dominating them a lot. They had no chance, it was kinda the same as they did to us on Mirage T side. Then [on our] CT side it was going their way, they played really good rounds, apEX was calling really well, but then there were some individual rounds which kinda made the game easy for us and in the end, closed the game.

Your individual rounds.

(laughs) Sometimes.

It was 10-2 in the first half, and it seemed like you guys were abusing Banana a lot. Was that part of your game plan?

Yeah, it was. We knew that xertioN, when he gets in the zone, is really unstoppable, even dominating them alone on Banana. The game was just in his hands and he basically took all the confidence that Vitality had in the moment. Also, we tried to punish them a little bit on A with picks, and especially with the rotation, because xertioN got entries a lot of time, and then they had to force something, and I tried to pick off players when they were rotating. I think that was generally just really well played by us.

There was a storyline about you guys struggling in arenas. It's been a bit of process, and you've done some stuff in your new facilities. How much has that helped, and also do you feel like you're finally getting over that struggle?

Yeah, I would say so. I would say now we are at the point that we should not use the excuse of playing on stage again. I don't think it's good, and I think it's kind of dirty from us, because we have so much experience already that it doesn't matter if we play on stage or not, it just comes to point whether we perform or not. Of course, on the stage there is still some pressure, and everyone is a lot more excited, obviously. I'm still happy that we can finally convert the game we played in studios to the stage.

You were asking about the MOUZ HQ, and the stuff we did behind the scenes. I will say that it helped us quite a bit, because first of all, MOUZ did a really great job as an organization. They built a really nice headquarters in Hamburg, and it has helped us to practice a lot, and the bootcamp has been really amazing. Previously we just went to random spots, but right not it feels like a second home to us. There, we can play as a team, and practice really hard, and it makes us feel like how we would play on stage.

And a third home for xertioN was rent-free in Banana this game.

(laughs) Yeah, exactly. I mean, he just has the game in his hands, what can I say?

Going forward, you didn't have the best start to this tournament with your opening loss, but you're going to face FURIA now against the home crowd. Brazilian fans are different and you know how the crowd is going to be; how do you feel about that match?

I definitely know that the crowd will not cheer for us, it is obvious. But at the same time, it feels kinda good that you are basically fighting 1v9 in a way that everyone is against you. It comes up to you that you prove everyone wrong. Of course, there will still be some fans I hope that are cheering for us, but of course everyone will be for FURIA. I'm just excited, and I want to see and hear how it feels, because I want to see how loud it gets. It's FURIA on the stage, I expect that it will be really fucking loud. So yeah, I'm looking forward to the game.

Are you looking forward to being the villain?

Definitely (laughs).