JT: "It feels like we have been improving really fast, at least in practice"

Passion UA's IGL is hoping they can translate their improvement in practice into future official matches.

The former Complexity core's slow start to life with Passion UA continued at StarLadder StarSeries Fall, as after an opening win against Gentle Mates, they crashed out of the tournament without another map win. Despite their struggles, captain Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou was upbeat.

"We have a full staff now, two coaches, everything we need to succeed," he told HLTV after exiting the event. "I can feel the improvement within practice, but when we come to the matches, we just have to bring our A game."

The South African caller spoke with HLTV after his team's elimination to discuss their form, incorporating Vladyslav "⁠Kvem⁠" Korol, and the team's quest for VRS points.

Listen to the interview here

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

I think on Train at the start, there were just a lot of protocols that we messed up that we had spoken about throughout the last two weeks. There were a few rounds where we had advantages that we should have won, and that really changed how the half would have been for us.

On Dust2 we had a bad start on CT, but were able to bring it back, and then just a few mistakes on T side towards the end of the half made us lose the game.

Train has let you down the last couple of times you have played it now. Any concerns on the map, or just bad days?

I have to look back and see what's going on. The problem is we kind of know — well we think we know — what's going on exactly, it's just the point of executing correctly the next time we play, which is always the hard part in CS.

The team has had a little bit of a slow start to life since you joined Passion UA. What has it been like from your perspective?

It feels like we have been improving really fast, at least in practice. We have a full staff now, two coaches, everything we need to succeed and I can feel the improvement within practice, but when we come to the matches, we just have to bring our A game. I am hoping that at DraculaN and in Riga we will be able to show what we've been working on.

How has it been incorporating Kvem?

Honestly pretty easy, I think he's a really talented player. He's really easy to work with and I think that if we're able to utilize him correctly, he'll be one of our best players, it's just that we have to utilize him correctly and actually help him join the system as well as he can.

It seems like he's quite vocal on the server, in the freezetime towards the end of that map he was quite vocal.

Yeah he's often pretty vocal which is why it's easy to work with him, he knows what he wants to do and is able to call rounds the way he wants, which helps the rest of us.

How does it feel playing with the added pressure of VRS? Because it feels like everybody is chasing points, and it maybe adds a bit of a pressure to this kind of game.

I try not to think it too much honestly. I think that the most important thing is just to win games and it was like that before, and it's going to be like that forever. If we just win our games, or at least win most of them, then we will be able to get invites to the next events.