s1ren: "arT said that we got lucky and that it would be easy for them, that lit a fire in me"

Spirit's youngster believes the team still has upset potential after winning their first match on stage at the PGL Major in Antwerp.

Pavel "⁠s1ren⁠" Ogloblin sat down with HLTV to share his thoughts about Spirit's match against FURIA in the PGL Major Antwerp's quarter-finals, where they made quick work of the Brazilians in a 2-0 series.

The 19-year-old talked about how Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan's words on stage before the series began, where he said that the Russians had gotten lucky in their previous match, as well as André "⁠drop⁠" Abreu shooting dead bodies in the initial rounds, lit a fire in him which ended up in the youngster ending with a series-high 1.32 rating.

s1ren also talked about the match itself, including Spirit's decision to pick Ancient instead of Nuke, the decision to start Vertigo on the attacking side, and his belief that every map and match is winnable.

You played your first match on a stage, it was the whole team's first time, what were your first impression of being up there in a Major quarter-final?

When we came to the player's lounge and saw the arena we were really nervous, I thought that I would be shaking. But when I was on stage I felt the energy, soaked it up and I felt like it would make me play even better than I would have otherwise.

And you did play really well. There were quite a few Brazilian fans in the front row and they were quite loud. How much of that did you feel?

We obviously heard them. We wanted to make them silent, make them cry, because they were cheering really hard for FURIA.

There was also a corner next to your booth cheering for you guys. Did you get their energy?

Yeah, we believe they were NAVI fans, but they supported us and we really appreciate it. It was very nice, cheers to them.

You had a couple of days to prepare going into the match itself. What was the preparation like and what did you think of facing FURIA. Were you confident you could come out on top?

Before the match-up we knew they would pick Vertigo because on paper it's our weakest map, which we lost recently to CPH Flames. But in the two days off that we had we practiced it a lot, added some strats and basically grinded the map. We knew it would be our chance to turn it around.

We knew that FURIA would prepare for us to pick Nuke because we beat them on it during the group stage, but we decided to surprise them and pick Ancient. We feel that our play style is good against theirs because they just press 'W' and we're good at taking duels. On Ancient, especially, CT side is favored so we can get a lot of rounds there and if they don't prepare for out T side we can get a lot of rounds there, as well, which we did.

Why did you pick T-side on Vertigo?

We really feel comfortable on T-side because we have a 100% winrate when we start T on Vertigo. We were really comfortable.

You've experienced the stage now, had your first contact with it going into the semi-finals. Now you're up against FaZe, one of the favorites to win the Major. Do you have it in you to cause another uspet?

We knew that we'd be able to beat top tier teams, and now we beat one on stage. We got the experience and now we feel like we have a good chance against FaZe, as well.

We worked a lot and we feel like we have a chance, obviously they're the best team in the world, but we feel confident in the work we've been doing over the past few months. Now everybody is hitting their shots, the strats are working, and teams haven't watched that many of our demos, so I think we'll have a chance.

You had a good game on the stage against FURIA, personally, even as one of the more inexperienced players on the team. What was it that got you going?

Before the game arT said that we got lucky and that it would be easy for them, that lit a fire in me, which I feed off of. Then during Vertigo, drop was shooting our bodies when he got kills, and that lit an even bigger fire, so I really wanted to fuck them up.

You made it to the Major semi-finals, something few could have imagined before the event. How are you processing all of this and what's the atmosphere in the team right now?

Right now everyone is really hyped up about the whole situation, we know it's in our hands. There's no pressure at all on us because we have nothing to lose. We're already here, so every map is winnable, every game is winnable, and we can just take it.