Before the start of the ESL Pro League Season 19 with CS2, Team Falcons sniper Álvaro SunPayus García talked with Players. We discussed the training period with Oleksandr s1mple Kostyliev, preparation for this tournament, and the experience of working with Danny zonic Sorensen.
What’s your experience of playing and training with s1mple? Do you think he had enough time to show himself?
I don't think he had enough time to show himself. He just came back for CS2 but he is a really good player. I could feel it in every practice, every situation, he is really smart, he understood it very good. I cannot wait to see him naturally in a real team for a long time. He will be really good.
So do you expect to see him in the other team in the competitive scene in CS2?
Yes.
Your team is one of the oldest (by age) on the professional scene, do you think age has a big impact, or does experience now play a bigger role?
I haven’t been thinking about it. I think the experience is obviously better in terms of playing on stage. I think right now the game is not made that way so that younger people are better than older, it is just a matter of experience.
But at the same time we see a lot of underdogs, smaller teams and the competition is rising. Most of the teams have younger players. For you it doesn’t matter - age and experience?
No, for me it doesn’t matter too much. As for me it is a matter of how good the player is. I don’t think it is really connected with age.
There’s a lot of community attention and high expectations for Team Falcons, does this put additional pressure on you?
No, it doesn’t. We know that we need more time to be actually really ready for Tier-1 events. But I think after the RMRs we had one month of practice, even more. And we’ve just created a really good system with Marco (ed - Snappi) and zonic, so everything is going to be better from now on and we will be more competitive at the next events.
You’ve mentioned that you need more time in order to be competitive. Do you have it inside your team, maybe zonic told you, the time projection? When will we see the next level of Team Falcons?
Obviously it is a goal for us. But we are trying to be in the moment, trying to go day by day. So we don’t have an exact date when we have to be good. It’s just a matter of time when we will be really good. By now we are just working day by day to improve as much as we can. Daily.
Your head coach, zonic, is one of the most experienced and the most titled coaches in CS. What can you say about working with him and what do you think his main success is? What can you say about him in the matter of what he shows you, he gives you as a player?
Obviously, I learn a lot. He also teaches me when I make a mistake. If he feels I’m better doing a more aggressive move than a passive move he will tell me. And I think his strengths is that he is so emotional. He can feel if the team can play good or not, he can feel if someone is having any issues. He is really ready to help anyone in the team to keep playing and developing together with a psychologist. So everyone is surrounded by the staff team: zonic and psychologist. We feel like a family. For me that is his strength. And usually outside of the game he is a friend, everything is good with him. His most biggest success was with Astralis, they won 4 Majors.
As far as I understood from your reply, he talks a lot with players, he wants to explain things.
Yeah, he talks a lot with me and also with Maden, with everyone on the team.
What can you say about your group and your opponents?
To be honest I didn’t check the group. I know some of the teams, but I don’t know most of them and don’t know exactly which teams are right now here at EPL.
In your opinion, which team can surprise us at EPL?
I think every underdog can surprise. Everyone is playing well, there are a lot of good players, and a lot of good teams. And everyone can surprise everyone. It is really tough to guess who is going to win the event. Some teams can be more consistent, but overall you can see teams like Eternal Fire playing insanely good. And I think every Tier-2 team is able to damage the Tier-1 team.
Do you have a minimum goal for this tournament?
Yes we do, we do it right before the start of the tournament so everyone is on the same page.
So what’s the minimal goal for Team Falcons?
We didn’t talk about it.
We would like to thank our friends from FAVBET for their support of the project, as they actively support esports and make it closer to Ukrainian fans.
