dupreeh: "I still think that the struggles are deeper than just changing one player"

Of course, coming into the team in the middle of the season was in some sense unexpected, I didn't expect to get picked up by Falcons.
Mainly because it was zonic running the team, not because I don't think he believes in me, but, although it wasn't a bad ending in Vitality, for me it was also nice to feel like he needed me.
Coming into the team in the middle of the season, they had their struggles, and I was brought in to try to help that out, but I still think that the struggles are deeper than just changing one player.
We've been trying to locate what the issue is and work towards a goal we can all see ourselves achieving. We've come a long way already, but there's still a long way to go. But, I'm happy to be a part of it and that I can still contribute.
I believe a lot of people started doubting that with my age and situation, maybe I wouldn't be able to perform and work at this level, and so far I'm proving I can still do good things.

It's mainly about the team not meeting the expectations of both ourselves and the outside world. It's been a hard mental battle to try to merge two successful teams and try to get things to work, and then expecting it to go easier than it has.
At least for my own sake, I've tried to create new teams from scratch many times and it always takes a long time. It's all about believing in the process and ignoring what those on the outside will say, they'll always easily judge you and determine whether you are successful or not, so you have to ignore that.
It's also about the level, we haven't shown what is expected of us, and it will take time to get there. The player break and bootcamp we have had will have hopefully done some good things to us.

Both yes and no, at the end of the time with Vitality I had started to figure out how I was supposed to function with my roles, how apEX was calling, and after multiple talks with my coach about expectations.
I think I learned something from that time, but of course, it's different coming into this team because I have very different roles and also the system as a whole is very different to Vitality.
It's been good for me to take this step back, in some sense. Sometimes you end up in a position where you realise what you have in life and realise what you're missing out on, and that was a good lesson. It's not that I took it for granted in Vitality, but it's been good for me to experience that.
Apart from that, my motivation skyrocketed whenever I was brought into this team so it's only been doing good things. With all the talks I've had with zonic and the others about Vitality, it was more a case of a decision that was made because Vitality wanted to have a younger roster and I can't do anything about my age, it's just part of who I am.

I think it's all about how you look at it, I think that there is definitely pros and cons to it.
Obviously, it takes a lot of time to figure out how you want to approach things with a team of this age. If you have people who are older, they might not have as much time to invest, so it has to be invested in a different way in terms of quality over quantity whereas the young blood can just keep playing for hour after hour.
I think that is one of the reasons why this roster also has the potential to work, we have a lot of experience and a lot of outside factors that can actually help us achieve something, but we can't put in as many hours as a team consisting of four 17 year olds might be able to.
I don't see it as an issue, when it comes to age, it's more about the mentality you come with. If you go in as an older playing thinking you can keep up with the young ones and that you don't have to play, or work for it in a different way, then you will fail. It's all about creating a mindset of wanting to achieve something and constantly improve. At least, that's what I'm looking to do.

Of course, there is a certain concern with the next season and with the whole planning and everything. But, right now, I'm not in a position where I can control that, I don't want to worry myself about it yet. I'll just take it one day at a time and we'll see how it looks in the end.
Yeah, sure, there will be tonnes of tournaments in a very packed schedule, but if I have to worry about that right now, then I don't know where I'll be, so we'll see how it looks when we get to that point.

For the team, it's very crucial that we just improve and get some better results, that is what is expected of us.
For me as an individual, I hope and strive to perform in the same way I did in the last season. I want to replicate my work ethic and take it one tournament at a time, I don't want to put any pressure on myself saying I want to achieve this and that, I just need to help the team, improve, and do what I can.
It's a boring answer, but it's the most realistic.