SunPayus: “It's an amazing experience; we're just going to focus on enjoying it and living the moment”

Movistar Riders‘ dream run at IEM Cologne lives on. After making it through the Play-in with wins over MIBR and Vitality, the Spaniards have remained undefeated at the tournament, picking up two more big scalps as they breezed past G2 in a convincing opener and won a tight rematch against Dan “⁠apEX⁠” Madesclaire‘s team.

Movistar Riders are now headed for a group-winning decider against Natus Vincere, but SunPayus and company have already guaranteed themselves at least a place in the quarter-finals and their first big arena appearance.

To get his first impressions on advancing to the playoffs, we spoke to the AWPer about the second Vitality win and making it through to the LANXESS Arena.

Congratulations on making it to the playoffs. First impressions? What is it like to make it to your first arena?

It’s the first time we make it to the arena in a big event, so we’re excited, that’s why we celebrated the last round so much. It’s an amazing experience and we are really excited.

You had an amazing series against Vitality to advance, what did you think about the match?

I was just feeling that we had it under control. We were losing Vertigo so badly, but I was telling the guys “they’re playing really well, boys, we cannot do shit.” They were really just too good, so we were just happy even if we were losing, so I think we had everything under control. Even when they played on the T side on Nuke.

Yeah, you had to battle against seven rounds on the T side, which tends to be enough these days, but you ended up putting up an even better offense. Tell me about the ending of Nuke and how intense those last few rounds were, since they kept having money for full buys.

We were 12-11 down and we got one round, and after it I was calling, I was helping alex with calls because I knew how to beat them, how to outplay them, so I think alex was doing nice calls, and with my help with just managed to take the win.

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You’ve got one more series to go to see if you can make it to the semis directly. Thoughts on moving forward and how far you guys take it?

I think we’re just going to focus on enjoying it, enjoying it and living the moment, actually. That’s it, I think.

Do you have any family coming?

I don’t think so, but I will ask them to come. I’m really excited to play in the arena.