zakk: "We never surrender"

After their stunning 14-7 comeback against the Brazilian 00NATION, Dust2's Dafydd Gwynn sat down with 9z's veteran coach Rafael "zakk" Fernandes to dive into how the South American team managed to pull it off. It is also worth noting that after this interview, in their second match of the day 9z would pull off another incredible comeback against the Brazilian legends on Imperial, proving that they are indeed the comeback kids.

How does it feel to bring it back after being down so massively in that game?

Our team is very known in South America for doing these comebacks. It's like, I don't remember the word in English now, but it's like we are good at coming back, we never surrender. It is a huge quality of our team. It feels great.

What sparked the comeback?

I think we never gave up...not even for a second. We lost a force-buy from them and even then we never gave up. People were still communicating pretty good, I didn't need to take a pause for them because this is the RMR it means the world for everyone. Like they already know it, they feel it we started getting some rounds on CT side and people started to loosen up and played what we pracc'd.

Obviously, you knocked out 00NATION at the last RMR, do you feel there's a little something extra, a rivalry between the teams?

I feel a bit of rivalry, especially between dgt and try because they were friends who started out together on 9z. But between the teams, I don't.

This is a slightly different roster from the last RMR, how has that affected the team, and do you have to play any different than what you used to?

Yeah we play very differently. Luken is a great player and excellent teammate but he is not an AWPer, he's a lurker and that's his normal role what he does best. Now, nqz is an AWPer and what he has done for a long time now and he knows how to position himself like an AWPer differently from Luken. We also have buda who came from the 9z academy and he hasn't even played against the best teams in South America so he is very new to all of this but his name lights up his qualities. He is a buddha, he is super calm and he is not shouting or anything and we needed that because we have a lot of hot blood on our team. So it's good to have him on our team.

Do you have higher expectations now you have been to the Major last time?

Of course we want to go to the Major again, but I just want us to play good cs. If we lose but play good CS then I am satisfied, if we win even more satisfied.

Is there anybody you really want to play?

I want to play Liquid because they are playing super great cs. I want to see how we do against them on this level, it will be super hard but that's how we learn. So I would like to play liquid.

You have been coaching and around the scene for a very long time, what would you say the biggest change in the scene has been since you started?

I see more of the old legends, more professional than we saw before, not everyone used to study their rivals or have a game plan back in 2015 or 2016. Now everyone watches everyone, you need to build an apartment in the head of the other guy because he is studying you and you need to study him. It was not like this, everyone is more professional now.

Would you say it's harder to be a coach?

For me no, because I'm playing with youngsters. It's different, I coached guys who didn't listen to much of me and it's understandable because they had a lot of experience but now these guys respect me a lot. That brings me joy and makes me want to work harder and harder, so it's pretty easy to work with them.

We haven't seen as many NA teams at this event other than the big three, do you think the ones that are here are better than at the last RMR?

I think everyone is better at this RMR, and the NA teams as well. Complexity is playing better, Liquid is as well, it's getting promising.

One final question, it went to overtime, you were up 15-14 then it went to OT; how good is this team's mental game?

I think on the practice we are not that good, when we start to lose rounds we are not that good, we get frustrated and it's hard to bounce back. But in the games it's completely different. even when we lost the last round, what max our IGL said to the boys was it's ok we played the round perfectly, we had three A guys and they hit A we just missed the shots. It's okay guys. we played good and they know we played good so it's okay.

9z have so far advanced 2-1 in the Americas RMR having just lost their qualification match against Evil Geniuses.