The passion gets on the way sometimes, according to the Turkish IGL.
Eternal Fire, an all-Turkish CS2 team, have disappointed in recent months but their captain Engin "MAJ3R" Küpeli expects to turn things around at BetBoom Dacha CS2 2024 in Belgrade, Serbia.
Confronting athletes going through hardships isn't always an easy task, but as soon as esports.gg asked the veteran IGL if it was fair to say Eternal Fire's form dipped following their historic top-eight finish at the PGL Copenhagen Major in March, MAJ3R confirmed that Eternal Fire haven't lived up to the expectations.
"I think it's fair to say we didn't display the form we have shown at the Major both individually and as a team," MAJ3R told esports.gg at BetBoom Dacha's media day. "I always say this, doing something very good like we exploding like we did at the Major, it's easy one time but staying there is always more difficult. Because then a lot of people start to watch you, analyzing you, and if you keep playing in the same way and don't work harder, you will just fall down."
If you haven't kept up with Eternal Fire after the Major, they had one really good result at the CCT Global Finals in May, and had subpar results in tournaments such as ESL Pro League season 19, YaLLa Compass, and more recently at IEM Cologne.
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And what's MAJ3R plan to get Eternal Fire back on track?
Unlike other times in which Eternal Fire opted for roster changes, even removing MAJ3r once, he assured esports.gg there's "not a lot of clash going on" these days, and the players are motivated to win again not only for themselves but for Turkey as a whole.
To achieve that in addition to working as hard as they're, MAJ3R mentioned that they must play more with their head and less with their heart, a known trait of several countries in Counter-Strike such as Turkey, Kosovo, and Brazil.
"We play too much with our hearts and I think sometimes it's a mistake we make," MAJ3R said. "Because the best teams play more with their brain and their head than heart. We have a culture in Turkey, maybe in Brazil is the same, and we're too passionate. We need sometimes to keep our calm, we've talked about this, and we'll try to do this at this tournament."
For MAJ3r, their first goal at BetBoom Dacha is to advance to the playoffs and then face some higher-ranked teams. Eternal Fire will debut against Aurora on Sunday, Aug. 25. The other teams in group B are FURIA and 9 Pandas, and only two of them will make the playoffs.
That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg to follow BetBoom Dacha CS2 2024 closely as we're covering the event live from Belgrade.