ash: "We've not really shown our A-game"

" Maybe it's not the worst thing, we ultimately got to playoffs, but we kind of had high hopes here," the GamerLegion coach said after the match.

GamerLegion's hopes of lifting their first international LAN title were crushed on Friday as they lost to BetBoom 2-1 in the quarter-finals of FISSURE Playground 1.

Erik "⁠ztr⁠" Gustafsson's troops got off to a strong start, stealing BetBoom's map pick of Dust2, but fell flat in the rest of the series as the Russian side were in control on Ancient and Mirage.

Reflecting on the run in Belgrade, Ashley "⁠ash⁠" Battye argued that his team only showed glimpses of its potential "here and there."

"I think we didn't play at our best in any map really," he said. "It's going to take a while to get there. I feel like we've not really shown our A-game.

"That's kind of what we came here to do, to at least show a couple of maps. Maybe it's not the worst thing, we ultimately got to playoffs, but we kind of had high hopes there."

Oldřich "⁠PR⁠" Nový headed into the playoffs as the highest-rated player of the tournament after averaging a 1.43 rating across the wins over Wildcard and SAW. He looked far from his sharpest in the quarter-finals, in which he put in a 0.77 rating.

ash explained that PR was "sick all day," which had an adverse impact on his performance. "It's probably going to happen at some point that he can't just be amazing every single game," he said. "So we'll let it slide. Not something to really worry about. He is amazing."

He also admitted that the team "struggled a little bit on stage," something that has been a recurring topic around the squad.

"We'll just go back and check what happened," he noted. "I think mentally we weren't the best today."

FISSURE Playground was GamerLegion's first event with Jeremy "⁠Kursy⁠" Gast, who took up the AWP from Henrich "⁠sl3nd⁠" Hevesi. The French sniper, formerly of GenOne, struggled for impact in his first stage match, posting a team-low 0.72 rating and getting only eight AWP kills, with ash stating on the broadcast after the match that he still needs to "get his nerves out of the way" and that "he looks fantastic" in practice.

Questioned about Kursy's performance, ash gave the player a vote of confidence.

"He will find his feet in no time," he said. "I don't think we've seen 10 percent of him so far compared to practice, but I'm happy that we're able to come here with 10, 11 days of practice and show that we're able to still make playoffs."