zonic: "To look myself in the eye and stay motivated, I need a team I believe in. I have it"

zonic believes the team will go through some growing pains before it can really flourish.

Falcons started their IEM Katowice run in Stage 2 with an opening round loss to Eternal Fire, a team they also failed to get past in the online portion of the first event of the year, BLAST Bounty Season 1.

Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen isn't too worried, however, as he is expecting the first few months of the new team to be a work in progress until they can hit their stride.

"We talked a little bit about the roles and the maps," Falcons' coach says, "starting out with Train that we all have to learn, and then also having four guys not working with Inferno for quite some time, it was a deliberate choice to go all in on setting the team instead of just leaving Inferno out for some time."

"We knew that, in the short term, this might hinder us a little bit, but for the first two or three months, we also need to accept that we are in the learning phase."

Read more about zonic's thoughts on Falcons' rebuild, bringing together players from different backgrounds, and more in the interview below.

If you can't see the embed above, you can listen to the audio recording of the interview here.

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Let's get into the off-season rebuild. Last year, you were in a similar position, where for a long time, it wasn't clear which way you were going to go, so tell me about how the process went from ending the last season to deciding on the rebuild.

Obviously, it's no secret that Falcons are here to win trophies. It was a hectic period in December, trying to get the roster that we wanted, and then the HEROIC deal was on the table at one point. Sitting here, even though we just lost, I'm super happy with the guys. But clearly, we need a bit more time.

How many iterations, how many different kinds of plans were there? How much was up in the air about who you can get and who you cannot?

I'm not gonna mention any names out of respect for the players and their organizations, but it was, as I said before, pretty hectic. It was days and nights spent ever since I came home from the Major, dealing with this and trying to have talks with different players and approaching them, and also having Falcons reach out.

It's tough building a team from scratch. I think I learned that the hard way last year. What hindered our team last year was definitely the spots that we didn't have. It's obviously a bit different, but it's still in the same way, you don't have points, which is why acquiring a core was alpha and omega for us.

We take it step by step, and as I said before, I'm very happy with the guys we have. I love their work ethics, the way their personalities, the group functions. But yeah, it's about getting more time under our skin. Today was rough, not gonna lie.

As you say, having a core is important, as it comes with all these invites. Was it always the plan to try to do that, or were there other plans where you would have had to start from scratch and try to figure out how you could make it up in the ranking?

This time around, of course — this is also something I speak openly about — we had other plans, but, to be fair, we also didn't know that the HEROIC opportunity even existed. We had other plans, and I was willing to start from scratch. I didn't want these quick fixes. I needed a team that came here believing in the project, and that wanted to be here. That was important for me. And I need to state this, as well — I really liked the former team; it was just the lack of firepower.

For me, it's just important that now you see Snappi doing well in NIP, and SunPayus doing well in HEROIC. Sometimes a team just doesn't click. Everyone from last year tried their best, and it was just not there. But when you join a project, and this was not what I left Vitality for, without disrespecting anyone, I obviously expected a higher caliber of players in terms of firepower, to have a star player, and it goes the same for the former players.

This time around, in order for me to look myself in the eye and stay motivated, I need a team I believe in. And I have it, and for that I'm grateful, especially given how last year went. I'm super grateful. Even though we just lost a game, I still have a smile on my face.

Last year, you didn't end up getting NiKo and opportunities fell through as a result of that. How much did having him from the start of this process help?

Of course, it helped a lot. He's a player who only misses one thing, and that is that god-damn Major. Everything else he is just top-notch when it comes to communication, his aim, his personality, he can definitely be a magnet when it comes to having talks with other players as well. It's a pleasure working with him. It's also that, in previous years, we've won a lot, me and Emil [Magisk], and for me, it's a huge goal to try and be the one that gets him that first Major.

People are coming in from three different schools, the HEROIC core, then yourself and Magisk, and NiKo as a very vocal, high-impact player, especially calling on CT sides. How difficult is it to make all these schools work together?

I don't think I can teach a lot about CT sides. He's probably the best that I've worked with when it comes to structuring the CT sides and also reading the game, and mid-round calling. So he has been put in charge of the CT side, obviously together with me. Then I have been very strict with putting kyxsan on the T side, mainly because he's not the most outgoing guy. I've been working with apEX for two years, and he was definitely speaking his mind. Damian is also doing that, but not knowing him from before and seeing him from the outside, I was afraid that NiKo comes in, Magisk also has a big opinion, it was important that I put him in charge of our T sides.

I would actually say the respect and the clicking between the players — obviously, we have differences, and we need to have these talks about how we see the game and how we react in different situations — overall, it's been easier than I thought it would be. But perhaps that's also because I took an active point of giving out the responsibility to those two in particular and also telling the rest that, for now, there's not going to be any individual moves, or Abdul [degster] having a lot of peeks that he can do. It's a lot about how Damian wants to call on the T side, how NiKo is on the CT side with my input, and how I see the game as well.

Is that something you learned from last year? It's no secret that there were some differences between your and Snappi's visions, so is that something that you're learning from and taking with you into this year, delegating some of these responsibilities more to the players?

It's definitely something you need to be able to fit together, both the IGL and coach, but also the players and IGL and all these different team dynamics. But of course, if I just put in how I see the game and Damian doesn't feel comfortable in it, it's most likely not going to work. It's a give and take where I give out those responsibilities, and when I feel like we need something else, or we need to add this, or whatever it can be, that's where I pitch in.

I also have to admit, me and Emil had a rough year last year, and that stuck a little bit with us. We came from CS:GO to CS2, had a couple of months off due to the transition into Falcons, and then last year, you can't really go and say, "Oh, this is what we did last year" because there's not a lot of good stuff (laughs).

Even though the strats can be good, we don't have that success experience that we usually had when we came from Astralis to Vitality and also Vitality to Falcons. But NiKo came from a solid G2 and the guys from HEROIC came from a good period, so the majority of the things have also been from their side. I think overall as a coach, you can put in your system, but you need to be on the same page with your IGL. That is vital for a team.

The season started out with one win against ENCE and a couple of losses against Eternal Fire. Three out of four maps were fairly one-sided against EF — is that down to it being a difficult matchup, them being on a hot streak, or is it the growing pains that come with having a new team like this?

I think it's the growing pains. When we started the bootcamp, two days into the bootcamp, Train was announced. We talked a little bit about the roles and the maps, and starting out with Train that we all have to learn, and then also having four guys not working with Inferno for quite some time, it was a deliberate choice to go all in on setting the team instead of just leaving Inferno out for some time.

We knew that, in the short term, this might hinder us a little bit, but for the first two or three months, we also need to accept that we are in the learning phase. Despite the result today, I saw improvements, but if you lose three or four forcebuys across the two maps in MR12, you're kinda destined to have a rough game.

We lost three forcebuys on Inferno and some rounds that could have gone our way, a little miscommunication, then it's gonna be rough. Then, on Train, we had a pretty good period in practice, but today, it didn't show. Props to Eternal Fire for playing pretty good individually.