zakk: "Results are going to happen, sometimes for you, sometimes for the enemy"

First it was paiN, then it was Imperial, and the Legacy was the third Brazilian team to prove spoiler here at the PGL Copenhagen Major. The Americas squads are looking better and better as they fight for qualification to the Elimination Stage and are hoping not just to continue the Americas five spots, but to improve that to six or even more.

With Imperial, paiN, and Legacy now 1-1 on the day, it's a solid showing overall for a region that has seen too many teams go out 0-3, like in previous Majors. After the overtime loss against Heroic, Imperial's head coach Rafael "zakk" Fernandes spoke with Dust2.us about the mentality of the team, the surprising results, and how the team has handled the two major comebacks.

Below are snippets of the conversation while the full interview can be found on YouTube.

Coming off another overtime thriller, this time you were on the losing end. Walk me through the emotions, coming all the way back for a second time, what were you trying to tell the team, how were you trying to help the squad?

I didn't have to help them mentally because they were fine with it. Four rounds [on the T-side] was a good half for us, we haven't had good halves on the T-side during practice. After we won the pistol they were cool too. I think the only help I had to give them was on some pauses I had to say what we were going to do next round and try to chill them out to not talk about the previous round. At some point in this game we were talking about what happened in the round before and that's not good for us. I think that was the worst part of this BO1 but on the other side, they [Heroic] are a tough team, their strongest map is Mirage and it was a good match, I'm happy with it.

1-1 on the day, if you guys didn't have that first round victory, would you still be happy with where you are at?

Yeah. I'm actually happy. Whatever, you know? I don't care if we lose 0-3 and go home because everyone is doing their best every day. Today is not different from the other nine days we stayed in England on our bootcamp. Everyone is trying their best so you cannot ask for more. Results are going to happen, sometimes for you, sometimes for the enemy, but if you give your best, I'm happy with it.

How do you see your qualification chances?

I think it depends on the matchups. We can play well against Heroic and ENCE, but let's say we play a weaker team on paper, we could play worse because their style doesn't fit ours. There's no one here that is weak, everyone is very very strong, so it's all right.