With our run in Road to Rio Europe comes to an end, our Director of Esport Daniel Vorborg has put his thoughts on our campaign onto paper:
My feelings are incredibly vexed about our results in Road to Rio.
On one hand, we’ve received incredible amounts of support and love from CS:GO fans from pretty much all over the globe. We finished 10th and right now we are also placed 10th in the RMR points, which is within the top 11 needed to qualify for the Major. We’ve shown that we can play up against some of the absolute best teams in the world, and we’ve been tested against opponents we’ve previously only been able to dream about facing off against. We have been broadcasted live on mainstream Danish television, with our families and friends watching, and we’ve been casted by some of my absolute favorite casters on the ESL main channel.
Before the tournament started, I would’ve settled for this result any day of the week.
Now, however, I’m left with a feeling of huge disappointment. I’ve been incredibly close with the team throughout this process, both in practice and in official games. I know the hard work they’ve put it, ever since Queenix joined the roster. This bunch of players have worked harder than I’ve ever seen any other team work, their work ethic and hunger to win is unmatched.
Before the last game, we had to win to proceed or North had to lose to G2 while using their coach as a stand-in. I felt like our chances of advancing were very high. I had faith that we could beat Mousesports and I felt that North’s chances should be incredibly slim versus G2. Neither panned out the way we needed it to, leaving us to fight for 9th/10th instead of still being in the running for first. Had we won one more game in the tournament, we would have been through.
We lost 4 games in the group stages, all 1-2. 3 of them with a second map being a 14-16 loss.
The team was absolutely gutted, and we didn’t manage to pull ourselves up for the match against Ence, resulting in us not really showing up on the server at all in that series.
(continued below)
Despite this huge feeling of disappointment, we have to look at the silver lining. We had about 4 weeks together as a roster before having to play in this tournament. We are up against clubs with budgets ~5-15x ours. We are up against teams used to playing at Majors, with a rookie lineup. The fact that we earned the right to be disappointed is a huge testament to the fact that we are moving in the right direction with this project. It’s a huge testament to the sheer talent and dedication of our 5 players and coach.
We have a ton of things to iron out, and work on – but I have no doubt in my mind, that this is only the start for these players, and they will continue to evolve and progress.
So while I am really disappointed right now – that feeling is outweighed by my proudness of what we’ve achieved and what I know we will achieve in the future.
