torzsi: “I hope we can bring this momentum into the next season”

MOUZ were a team written off by many heading into IEM Cologne given their lackluster results in recent tournaments, but the international side put up a tremendous effort and went on a deep run all the way to the playoffs, eventually being eliminated by Astralis in a tightly-contested quarter-final match.

Despite the quarter-final loss, the event as a whole was a success for MOUZ and a step in the right direction moving forward, finally bagging a solid result in 5-6th place after previously having settled for 9-12th at both the Roobet Cup and IEM Dallas.

As the smoke cleared from their IEM Cologne campaign, MOUZ‘s AWPer Ádám “⁠torzsi⁠” Torzsás sat down with HLTV .org’s Zvonimir “⁠Professeur⁠” Burazin to share thoughts on his personal experiences, his team’s recent performance, what’s changed heading into Cologne, and what’s yet to come after the player break.

IEM Cologne, you finished 5-6th, played on stage, and had a very close match against Astralis. Tell me now after one day has passed, how do you feel about your tournament?

Extremely proud of the team, everybody’s happy and proud that we made it into the playoffs and also I hope the MOUZ management is also proud for us, we went to the playoffs for the first time in MOUZ history. Also, it feels amazing, it felt amazing to play on the stage in front of thousands of people, to be honest, it was my first game on stage in front of people so I was a little bit nervous but it’s just indescribable.

I feel like a lot of players say that they don’t get nervous, you’re one of the players that kind of embraces it. How does that affect you when you’re on the stage?

It makes you more relentless as I would say, it makes me more relentless. Sometimes I can make really stupid mistakes as I did on Nuke on the third round, I totally misplayed and we lost the round because of that, but for example, when I jumped down on B site and I flashed in it was because I was feeling the hype, I knew I had to do this. Sometimes it’s going out in the right direction, and sometimes it hits you on the bad side, it can go either way. Most of the time I feel like it’s getting more towards the better side recently, but in the beginning, I was more nervous.

Tell me about the Astralis game, specifically that last half it seemed like you had it on Ancient CT side, but they made a comeback. What happened there, why did you [MOUZ] fall apart?

That’s a hard question to be asked, I think gla1ve was calling really good on Ancient and they played a really good T side, which we also did. I don’t know exactly where we fell apart, but I feel like we didn’t give up and we were fighting until the end of the game, which was really nice to see, but I feel like they just played better. Also, maybe it came down to the nerves, we were getting a little bit nervous and we didn’t play the way we should have.

This result comes kind of as a surprise for most people, looking at MOUZ’s season, not really any big results and now at one of the biggest tournaments of the year, you make playoffs. A lot of talk has been about IEM Dallas, and kind of how you guys after being eliminated had some discussions and re-jigged stuff. What actually happened? What went down to make this turn around for you guys?

I feel like just the whole season in the beginning nothing was working out for us and things just didn’t work out but the problem was that on practice we had really good results, but it just didn’t work out on the officials and we didn’t know what was going wrong. Then, we had the talk after Dallas, we just talked about everything for two days. We talked about feelings, and it was really emotional, and yeah just rebuilding the system and since then we’ve had a really good path. I hope we can bring this momentum into the next season.

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You said you talked about feelings, there was a sports psychologist involved as well so things outside of the server were also discussed. Do you think that’s the more important part, or was it the adjustments on the server?

Both are important, but also our sports psychologist Ole Fischer, he’s working with us a lot and fortunately, he can come to the tournaments with us in Dallas, Dubai, and now here. It feels really nice to be here with him and he helps us a lot, so I would like to give him props. Without him, I feel as we couldn’t have done this change.

Let’s just talk about the season overall, you came into the main team, playing on Tier 1, a lot of big tournaments now, how do you sum it up these first six months?

I would say, just for me and my performances, it was not too bad. The RMR was a big slump, it was really bad, I know it was my first negative performance in years, and I felt really bad after that because I let my team down, but I know that there will be more chances. I talked a lot with my sports psychologist and I just had to go through it, it happens, it is what it is, I had to accept it and after that, I feel like I stepped up for the [IEM] Dallas qualifier, in Dallas I could have been better but I feel like in Cologne I stepped up and helped the team in a really good way.

What are your favorite moments from this first season? Do you have any standout games, highlights or just moments in general that come to mind and you’re happy about?

Yeah, [ESL] Pro League, versus G2 the 1vs4 clutch. Here on Nuke on B site, the three kills, it was amazing when I just looked around and everyone’s just standing up and shouting, it was indescribable. Also, to qualify for the playoffs, of course.

So you said you want to keep this momentum going, what are the plans now for the off-season, how are you gonna spend the off-season and get back into shape and attack the next season?

We will just take a break, everyone will go for holidays and things like that, and then Pro League will start in September. There’s nothing planned yet, I don’t know how it will work out, it’s my first players’ break so it will be weird to not play or not practice for like 1-2 months or something.

Okay that’s it, do you have any final words or shout-outs or something that you want to add?

I just want to say thank you to everyone who cheered us for the whole season, and thanks for the interview.