zonic: "We don't feel like the number one team in the world"

After securing qualification for the legends stage by besting OG in three maps, Dust2.us' Ryan Friend spoke to Vitality's legendary coach Danny "zonic" Sørensen about the team's bumpy ride in Rio so far, the pressure of being seen as the #1 team in the world and the effect of the crowd in the Challengers stage.

Congratulations on the win, it was a tight victory and a tough road to get here. What are your immediate thoughts about finally getting to this stage?

For us it has not been perfect, we have definitely been playing worse than what we know we can do. But its a mental game, we had a rough start to the tournament and now we are fighting our way back and as I told the boys there is no...err...when you are not playing 100% let's say we are playing 50% you are not going to go to 100% the next day. We are taking it one step at a time, we have to grind our way back into the tournament, and then now it's a new game. We are resetting the score, we have a day tomorrow where we can look at what is going wrong and we have a call with our sports psychologist. Then it's just about resetting mentally and fixing some of the tactical aspects of the game that we have felt have been lacking for us.

You guys have had some disappointing losses previously in this stage, are you looking back on those games heavily as you try and improve ahead of playing tougher opposition next week?

Of course there is something, but I think the headline for our run so far is definitely mental. I feel like we tried to eliminate the pressure of being the number one team in the world because we don't feel like the number one team in the world. Now officially, according to HLTV, we have lost that spot to FaZe so all eyes are on them now hopefully (laughs). I think the pressure caught us a little bit, it's a huge stone of our back reaching the Legends stage. Now we will be going against the best teams in the world, 16 teams left now so hopefully, the win on stage will help us reset mentally, but we need some help from our sports psychologist at home.

So I think pressure has been a big component over the past few months, you had G2 not even make it here, you have had Cloud9 go down 0-2 and now they are fighting their way back and you have seen with the crowd they are so loud. The Brazilian teams faced a lot of pressure and two of them went out 0-3. Do you feel the crowd is causing this Major to be different from other Majors at this stage?

I definitely think, and I have to give credit to all the upcoming teams, I didn't expect anything from Grayhound and they beat Cloud9 and you see GamerLegion beating us. I think we are seeing a new generation coming up slowly and it's not like the young players need that much time to adjust on the big stage they are just going to perform. I think the old teams need to look at themselves because the young guns are looking to take over, huge respect to all the teams investing in Academy teams and having the right people surrounding the players. I think it shows off right now that Counter-Strike is not like how it was when we were good on Astralis, with five, six, or seven teams who are really good we now have maybe 20 teams that can beat each other on any given day. It's much tougher to stay on top right now.

That actually poses an interesting question all of those upsetting and upcoming teams are ones that aren't in any of these partnered leagues, especially Pro League, so you don't get as much experience playing against them. Does that have anything to do with them being able to cause upsets?

Maybe to some extent but I also think that the upcoming teams have to play in so many tournaments, they are playing officials left and right and participating in qualifiers. They get so much more match experience in compared to the top teams, only attending tournaments with the top ten, fifteen teams in the world and then you play two or three games and then go out and you don't get into that flow. Where some of the young teams they are getting official matches here and there, I think it's tough for us, we also know some of the top teams then you get this new team with a weird playstyle but they know you and how you play. It's weird to see the new teams coming up who aren't a partnered team with ESL or BLAST but they are still performing, I guess it comes down to them playing so much more than top teams.

Now moving into the Legends stage, how are you preparing to do better going forward?

I think there are some nerves that have been taken off our shoulders going forward. For me, we have to go home and look, for this game Inferno CT side really stood out to me that is something we have to fix for the coming days. Other than that I think we lost Vertigo, which is probably our best map, and not to take anything away from GamerLegion but I think the pressure caught up with us so for me it's going to be a long talk with the team and our sports psychologist. I think also coming into this stage being a favorite everyone expects, including us, us to qualify and now it looks like we will be going up against NAVI in the Legends stage so the pressure is off because there is no shame in losing to NAVI, FaZe some of these teams are the best in the world so I hope now that the most pressure is off and we can play our game. Just happy to be in the top 16 because it has been a tough run for us.

Any final thoughts as you finish up this stage and you are able to make another top 16, Dupreeh's able to make another top 16?

It's an amazing feeling, I have been playing counter-strike since 1999 when the game came out, and to see where we are right now I just want to enjoy every moment of it. The crowd here, only 4000 it's just...my biggest goal would just be to qualify for the playoffs and to see 18,000 crazy Brazilians I don't think there's a headset with noise cancellation in the world that could help against that (laughs).