s1mple: “I think this was the hardest final that I've ever played”

Aleksandr “⁠s1mple⁠” Kostyliev spared time after a narrow defeat to FaZe in the grand final of IEM Cologne, speaking with HLTV.org’s Lucas Aznar Miles about what went wrong in the title-deciding game.

“We felt like we had this comeback,” s1mple said, but two A hits from FaZe ended Nuke in favor of the international team, solidifying their place as the No. 1 in the world. The sniper also spoke positively about Viktor “⁠sdy⁠” Orudzhev, and explained why he threw away his second-place medal into the crowd.

End of IEM Cologne, end of the season, final match, incredible five map match that went all the way to the very end. I guess the emotions are still very raw right now, but how did it feel to play such a close series, the two best teams in the world in front of such an amazing crowd?

It felt great until we lost the round of A when they did an execute twice in a row and just went out on A, we felt like we had this comeback. I think this was the hardest final that I’ve ever played, and all ten players from this final and the coaches, they get a huge amount of experience. It just failed on CT side I think, on Mirage and on Nuke. Especially on Nuke, we knew they were going to do this execute, but we just… some of our players forgot we need to take main, we need to smoke door and take main, but it’s only because of new spots.

Hopefully in the future, if we keep playing with the same roster, have the same energy and the same amount of preparation, we’re going to play much much better, and this is the part that makes me happier.

Talking about keeping the same roster, you’ve played two tournaments with sdy. You got a first place, you got a second place, how does it feel having in the team and how did it feel throughout these two tournaments?

It actually feels good to have sdy in the team. Of course, he didn’t play tier one CS for quite a long time and he needs to learn a lot of stuff, but I see in his eyes that he wants it, he wants these trophies, he wants to learn more, he wants to play better, and as I said it’s just a matter of time when he’s going to get on the next level.

After the match, I saw you threw the second place medal into the crowd, was it just out of frustration or what was it?

No, I’m just traveling all the time with my bag, and I don’t have place for the big DHL MVP [laughs], and this medal is… too many medals inside this bag you know, I need to save them for home.

Talking about home, you know it’s summer now, you’re going to have a little bit of time off, you’ve said before it’s been hard for you moving around and not really having a stable place. What are you looking forward into this time that you’re going to have now?

I’m looking forward to practice as much as possible with this team and to win all tournaments, and just to beat FaZe next time because this one was very interesting and a hard game, and I’m pretty sure that in the future we’re going to play much better and it’s going to be a different result.

Just to close things out, you talked at some point that you have to stop them from getting that Intel Grand Slam. They now have three, and six more chances, how hard is it going to get to stop them every time?

It’s going to be hard. I’m pretty sure other teams want to stop them and get this $100,000. We’re going to do it as always, just step by step, we’re going to learn and fix our mistakes, and hopefully we’re going to play better.