kassad: "Nobody will gift us the win"

MOUZ' first match was up against CIS Minor winners FLuffy Gangsters, and they started off by being down 3-8 on Dust2 but managed to slowly come back and win 19-16 in the overtime.

Before their match the Germany-based team revealed Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović as their new coach, who we got a chance to talk to about various topics, including the process of him joining MOUZ:

Let's start by how you got approached by mousesports, who contacted you and when did you join?

Well, it was like 7-8 days ago, NiKo contacted me on Steam and we made a deal that I'm gonna try out and see what happens. We started from there and practiced every day.

How did those eight days go, how much were you able to find out how you're going to coach the team?

Honestly, I would've liked to have much more time than about eight days, because it's not enough to prepare against teams like this. But we got only eight days, it is what it is, we prepared as well as we could.

According to the announcement, the team is looking for you to start leading, how long do you think it will take?

I could start right away, but I didn't want to do it, because it would be counter-productive. I just wanted them to play their own routine and just slightly get into it. As time goes by, I'd do it more and more and more until I can take control of the in-game leading. But we'll see about that, we're still talking about it. 

Looking at this event, what kind of preparation have you put in? How much were you able to look into the teams, considering the system makes it harder for you to prepare for specific opponents?

Yeah, I had a plan for everything, but then the format came out and it all went down the drain. I don't know, the team had a bootcamp before me, like 10 days maybe, in Germany. Then we started practising online, and that's basically it. 

What do you think about the Swiss system overall?

From my perspective, I'm looking at the interest of my team - I don't like it. But in general, it's a great system, it's a great format, because you cannot blame anything besides your own game if you fail. It's just that as a favourite it's not that good, as an underdog maybe it's better. It is what it is, I guess.

Which teams do you see as your hardest opponents?

Well considering the current form, I think G2 is in the best form right now from what I saw. FaZe is looking good, but I think they have some strategical issues based on the practices that we had. And we played against Cloud9, they seem solid. G2 will probably be the first one to qualify, if not us. 

Talking about the Fluffy Gangsters match itself, you played one of your favourite maps, but it didn't go quite as planned. How much did you expect them to show up as much as they did?

Honestly, the first thing I said before the match started was that every team that is here earned their spot by working hard. Nobody's gonna gift us the victory, we have to just take it, because every team is gonna fight every map. That is what they did. Fortunately for us, we had more experience and we kinda used that against them and won the map.

In the beginning you fell behind a lot and it was 8-3, then you came back - was that an adaption or more of individual play?

It was adaption, it was like adjustment to their play, but the thing that kinda disbalanced us was that second round that we lost after taking the pistol. There was a missed smoke and I think it was ROBO who shot us like 10 times with a Scout. It was unlucky, it was a mechanical issue, we missed a smoke and it cost us. That led into their economy being good and ours not as much, we then managed to adjust at 8-3 and picked up the last four rounds in a row, we noticed how they like to guard the sites. And after that, it was 15-12 and liTTle won that one crazy round by himself and we didn't have so much money. But we composed ourselves in the overtime and won it pretty convincingly.

Again, you won't know who you're going to face tomorrow until the end of the day, how are you going to prepare in between the days?

We're just going to chill out now, maybe talk about the game a little, restart. Then wait for the opponent and then me and NiKo are gonna prepare for them. The rest of the team too, obviously, but me and NiKo will be the guys who will prepare the gameplan. We just have to wait and see who it's gonna be.

MOUZ will now have the rest of the day off and come back tomorrow with hopes of reaching their second win over one of day one's winners.