Brollan: "It's not easy to get trust from the teammates, it will take a long time"
Brollan may have only been the IGL of MOUZ for three events, but he's already done the one thing they couldn't do with siuhy - lift a trophy in an arena setting.
Champions of PGL Cluj-Napoca, MOUZ made light work of Falcons in the final, and then went on to the final of ESL Pro League Season 21, where they were ultimately taken down by Vitality.
Ahead of BLAST Open Lisbon, we sat down with the new IGL to discuss his first steps into the role, his next steps to improve as a leader, and what new star Spinx has brought to the team.
Photo: Shaun Lee"You just can't give Spirit space, don't play with respect for them"
We're now a few months into the year, maybe it's been a little different than you thought it would, so how have you been finding it?
The past months have been going great. Obviously, there's been a new task for me in switching roles, but it's been really fun, exhausting, of course, but I don't regret it.
You've already managed to lift a trophy in that time, how much did it mean to you coming so soon after picking up the IGL duties?
It felt really good. PGL Cluj-Napoca maybe wasn't the best tournament if you look at the teams, none of the top three were there, but it was still a good achievement for us.
The tournament was mainly us testing the waters. We knew we could win it, but we were surprised when we did because we didn't expect it.
It's a great start to something new, and it boosted my confidence in my new role.
You said it boosted your confidence, did you have any doubts when you took over the role?
Not really, but I'm learning a lot about how to actually lead a team and how to reset. The one task was the freeze time calling, I was always thinking about how I should do that but I got a lot of tips from the coaching team about how to manage that and the frustration sometimes. Calling as fast as possible with small words while also being precise is important.
I'm very confident in myself, and although it's going to be a big change, I've already accepted I won't be perfect at the start and it's going to take some time.
Photo: Shaun LeeWith that win coming on a stage as well, do you think that's good for the team overall considering some of the stage struggles you've had?
Yeah, I think especially when I first joined we had our struggles on stage, but there's nothing we're worried about at the moment.
I think we could see it when we played at IEM Rio and at the Shanghai Major, we were starting to stay under control on stage. But obviously, it's also a confidence boost for me to win on stage, I was really surprised by how calm I was when we got there. There was a big crowd but I reacted to it well.
You've mentioned in other interviews that you always thought you would become an IGL, but did it come earlier than you thought it would?
Of course, the IGL dream was something I was thinking about a lot for the future, but I didn't think it would come now. My plan was to always do it in the future for Swedish talents coming up.
I got the trust from the coach when I suggested to do it, so I always confident, but it did come sooner than I thought.
You mentioned some things you've worked on already, but what else do you think you need to work on to grow in the role?
A lot of things. The freeze time calling is really important, and I think the main thing is to be a good leader for my teammates and get the trust from them. It's not easy to get trust from the teammates, it will take a long time.
Obviously, there's some trust, but it's not 100 percent. I knew I would get this, because it takes time, so I just have to improve and adapt as much as possible.
Spinx joined when siuhy was benched, what has he brought to the team?
He's got a lot of experience in big games, he played for both Vitality and ENCE and they were both good teams.
He knows how to play on stage, and he's always been a really good rifler, his firepower is insane and he can win maps by himself. He boosts the environment too, he's a fun guy to be around.
Photo: Shaun LeeYou have a great record against Spirit, what is the key to beating them?
You just can't give them space, don't play with respect for them. There's many teams that respect donk, and he's a really good player, but there's a lot of space he gets in games.
Your next event is BLAST Open Lisbon, your first game there is against Falcons, do you think there's a rivalry forming there?
Not really, even if we've played a few times. They're a really good team, but we've beaten them the last two times now. We're really confident against them, and it's always fun to.
They didn't have a great Pro League, so they've got some time to practice now and we'll see how it goes, I'm looking forward to it.
How are you feeling about the tournament overall and the chance to go on and play in front of the Portuguese crowd?
It's going to be really fun, I'm looking forward to playing a BLAST event again. I like being in Copenhagen, so it'll be fun to go there.
I haven't really played in BLAST since joining MOUZ because of the partnerships, so it'll be nice to be there again and especially on LAN.
I also haven't played in Portugal before, so if we qualify for the playoffs it'll be a nice shake up to visit there and play there. I've heard a lot of good things from other players, especially Spinx, they say it's insane there and that the culture is too.
After BLAST Open Lisbon you have a bit of a break until IEM Melbourne, what will be the important things you focus on in that time?
We'll go home and practice a lot, take some off time too, but try to improve our map pool and our playbook. We don't need to rethink things, but we need some good updates to our playbook.
SpiritSpiritEternal Fire
