juanflatroo: “This is what I call a dream come true!”

Bad News Eagles had a perfect start to their journey in Brazil, winning their three first IEM Rio Major matches against BIG, GamerLegion and 00NATION in the Challengers Stage to clear the first phase of the tournament with a clean record.

The Kosovar then team faltered in the Legends Stage, with a start that was reminiscent of the one that ended in a 0-3 elimination from the PGL Antwerp Major’s Legends Stage. Klesti “⁠stikle-⁠” Kola‘s men did the unthinkable at Riocentro this time around, however, and knocked the No.1-ranked FaZe out of contention in a 0-2 elimination match to keep the playoff dream alive in Rio de Janeiro.

“Now that we beat FaZe we have this high confidence that will hopefully pass on to the next game as well,” juanflatroo said in the post-match interview which can be read below in full. “If we play the same as we played today the Champions Stage is really possible and I really believe in it.

You just beat FaZe in an 0-2 match at a Major Legends Stage. You’re still alive to play on. Can you even believe it yet?

Amazing! Amazing! I’m out of words, I’m trying to think, I’m really trying to think. This feels like a dream. You’re beating the best team in the world, you’re playing the elites here. Once upon a time you were cheering for them and you were a big fan of them and now playing them and beating them? This is what I call a dream come true! It doesn’t get better, I’m really grateful for everything that God is giving us. All of these feelings, emotions. I’m really happy.

Tell me a bit about the match itself. They floated Vertigo and you jumped on that. You then ended on Mirage, which is like your home. Tell me a bit about those maps.

Vertigo was literally unexpected, but once we saw that chance we had nothing to lose. That’s where they made a little mistake. We took the chance and picked Vertigo because we feel confident on it. We had some bad results, but that was online and we were having a tough time, but we didn’t doubt our Vertigo at all. It went smooth, it feels really nice.

After that you played Nuke, a hard map, and finished it on Mirage. Tell me about those overtimes, the situations in the overtimes. Getting match point, losing match point, playing the second OT…

If we it was the beginning of our careers we would probably shit our pants and lose every single round, but now? I can tell what experience means. Experience is priceless, literally, now that we’ve played many times on this level. We’re at our second Major, when the pressure is not there and you can play your game, 100% your own game, there’s no better feeling.

The first two games were tough because we respected our opponents so much, we thought it was the end of the world. The last time we made the Legends Stage the same pressure hit us, but today… we had a really long talk last night and we said: ‘What’s going on? This is not us and this is not what we came here for, just release the best, have fun, enjoy it like a FACEIT game.’ It’s really that mindset that we got into the game that helped us a lot. If we would have gone with the same pressure we had in the first two games we’d probably lose really badly.

This is one of those matches in which I could feel the tension just watching you play, the intensity was present every second of every round. How did you manage to get rid of the pressure in the big moments?

Personally, I had no pressure. I mean sure, there’s a bit, everyone has it, but I kept telling myself, ‘just have fun, enjoy the game, you have nothing to lose, play your A game,’ and that’s it. That’s it. Every single round I was telling myself to enjoy the game. ‘Don’t think too much, don’t overthink, just shoot some heads,’ and it worked.

The classic BNE way.

Exactly! If we do that we can go far, we can really go far.

In the past you’ve gone 1-2 to 3-2, now in this Legends Stage…

0-2 to 3-2! Now that we beat FaZe we have this high confidence that will hopefully pass on to the next game as well. If we play the same as we played today the Champions Stage is really possible and I really believe in it.

If we play our A game it’s hard to stop us, we’re a really unpredictable team and we like to have these mid-round calls in which we switch everything up. The experience is also getting there, it’s making things a lot easier. So yeah, we stand a big chance and I hope we’ll play our A game to definitely be there.