dastan: “I can confirm that it was Jame who sparked my transformation.”

The matches at ESL Pro League Season 24 were very important to us because, if we had lost, it would have triggered a whole different mental game. You know how it goes: one of your opponents fails to defuse the bomb, you win the round by a hair, and instantly everything feels better. A win cures a lot of ills; you immediately forget all the bad stuff. If you lose, you immediately start thinking that you’re doing something wrong and need to change something. I’m not referring to the team roster right now, but rather our approach to the game, tactics, and so on. For our roster, the results of the tournament in Katowice were the most significant, and now there’s less pressure on us—we’re just trying to win and build our confidence. It should get easier over time; the experience we’ve gained together helps. Plus, we’ve been playing almost exclusively against teams in the top 5 of the rankings lately—very strong opponents—and that’s important. Among other things, we shouldn’t forget that we’re fighting for a spot in the Major—we need to rack up as many points as possible, since the date for sending out invitations is approaching. Despite this, when talking with the team, I try not to put too much pressure on the guys with thoughts like that.

I continue to practice the European coaching style. During the last championship, I felt like a character in an American movie: after the match against FURIA, everyone was downcast, no one said a word, and I was high-fiving the guys as they boarded the bus, supporting them as best I could, because they needed it. Now the roster has gotten older; perhaps it’s not entirely accurate to say that the players have started to understand more, but their level of personal responsibility for the outcome has clearly increased. In a week, I’m heading to Kazakhstan—I haven’t been home in a very long time, and I want to return in good spirits, so I’m doing everything I can to make that happen. I’ve been with PARIVISION for two years now; it’s been a great journey, step by step, and now I want to end it on a positive note.

After I tweaked my approach and attitude a bit, the players started to feel better—that’s true. Even though HObbit and FL1T are very experienced, they haven’t played on the Tier 1 scene for a while, so I have to remind them of certain things. And here’s another thing: given our tight schedule, sometimes we have to choose between thorough match preparation and rest. Thorough preparation takes a lot of energy, but if we sacrifice it, our opponents might punish us for it, so we have to find a balance.

Thanks to the shift toward a more gentle approach to coaching, I’ve been able to delegate more responsibility to others. Now, HObbit and FL1T take on a significant portion of the responsibilities, but when there were a lot of young players on the roster, I didn’t always understand what was on their minds. It felt as if everything was resting on me and Jame, and we had to give it our all. When I see that the team wants to win and is doing everything it can to achieve that, I stop worrying. Sometimes, of course, I get the feeling that the team is in bad shape: the players aren’t talking, the atmosphere suffers—that’s when I start putting pressure on them. But overall, the mood is more positive now. And that’s extremely important, because before the EPL started, we were ranked 34th; every game was worth its weight in gold, and in that situation, I knew we were prepared, so all I had to do was support the guys. On top of that, it was a Swiss system, so one loss didn’t mean the end of everything—we still had a second chance, and that’s always nice; it takes the pressure off. But actually, even before the tournament in Katowice, I said that even if something went wrong, there was no need to worry—there were still plenty of matches and opportunities ahead.

I can confirm that it was Jame who initiated these changes for me. We had a conversation in which he told me that maybe I’d gotten stuck in a rut from spending too long on the roster with the younger guys. He reminded me that now we have HObbit and FL1T on the roster, and I could finally relax a little. After that, I realized that I really did need to change—after all, I ask my players to get better, which means I need to follow that example myself and lead by example. So now I always stay positive and support everyone.