LNZ: "We were a bit mentally crushed considering we got owned in two best-of-ones in a row"

Sangal were eliminated with a 1-3 record despite coming into the tournament as the seventh seed.

Sangal broke out of the online scene in the leadup to the Major after making appearances at ESL Pro League S20, RES Regional Champions, and winning three online CCT titles.

That gave the team led by Linus "⁠LNZ⁠" Holtäng the seventh-highest seed coming into the RMR, but Sangal couldn't make the most of it and were sent packing after a loss to ECLOT in the 1-2 pool.

After the loss to David "⁠forsyy⁠" Bílý and company, LNZ spoke to HLTV about their campaign in Shanghai, the reasons for their lackluster performance, and his feelings about Sangal's season in general.

If you cannot see the Soundcloud embed above, listen to the interview here.

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You've been eliminated from the RMR. How do you feel right now?

Really disappointed. I felt that we could qualify, considering how we had played the previous tournaments. And with the form we had in practice, it felt really good coming in here. So it's really, really disappointing to not make it further.

You started well against Rebels and won, but then it went south, you could say. What do you think went wrong in the team?

We failed a lot of smokes during the MOUZ game. They just basically owned us, and I think it was kind of a tough loss for us. We were a bit mentally crushed after the match against Cloud9, considering we got owned in two best-of-ones in a row, like 13-3, 13-2. We fought better in this game, but I think the previous games affected us a bit too much.

A big struggle point during the tournament was Mirage. You were really good online and in the previous tournaments on it, but here, you couldn't get going. What happened on this map in particular?

I think we were having a bit of pressure on us on this map, maybe we were a bit nervous, and we just didn't shoot hard enough. We made a lot of individual mistakes and didn't play well with each other when the moments came. That was the biggest thing in this game.

You usually come into events as underdogs, but here a lot of people actually expected you to go through. Did that add any extra pressure for you?

We didn't talk about it, but I think it made a little bit of a difference, for sure. There is always more pressure when you feel that you're expected to qualify, and it's a big tournament. Even though we had played in EPL, it's still pretty new for us to play these big tournaments, and it's still new for me to IGL in these kinds of tournaments. It's a tough moment to go out like this.

Despite this, you broke through the online scene, won three events, went to EPL, and peaked at number 20 in the world rankings during the last few months. How do you feel about your season?

I think this season was one that we can be proud of. We qualified for EPL two times, we won CCTs that had pretty good top 30 teams in them, and just overall, we've shown a high level that we were hoping to show here. We can be proud, no matter how much it sucks right now.

What's next for the team? Is it just a case of resetting and going into a very busy 2025?

I think we will re-evaluate some stuff in-game, maybe just how we play in general, and the tactical part as well. And then, we will come back stronger.

You said you need to re-evaluate. What do you feel is the biggest thing you're missing or that you need to improve for next year?

I think it's hard to say. This tournament at least and maybe the few weeks before felt like we're maybe missing some elements that we need. I'm not quite sure what they are, but we just have to re-evaluate and return better for 2025.