Following a frustrating 2-0 defeat at the hands of PARIVISION at the BLAST Open Rotterdam, Team Falcons star Nikola “NiKo” Kovač opened up about the team’s struggles, a punishing first half on Mirage, and his pre-match comments that ultimately backfired.
Just days prior in an interview with HLTV, NiKo stoked the flames of the matchup by claiming Falcons “made them look better than they are.” After the sweep, however, the rifler was quick to give credit where it was due and explain the strategy behind his words.
Walking back the trash talk
When asked if he still felt PARIVISION looked better than they actually were, NiKo admitted the reality of the server.
No, I mean they are obviously a very good team right now. I just wanted to put a little bit of pressure on them because they always say in interviews that they don’t have pressure going up against us, and that we are always the favorites. I have a lot of respect for the whole team, especially for Jame and dastan that built this from zero pretty much. So, this was just a little bit of banter that obviously didn’t work out in my way this time around.
A frustrating mirage
The series was heavily dictated by a tough opening map on Mirage, where NiKo had an uncharacteristically quiet start. Despite the rough individual half, he noted that it wasn’t a matter of cracking under pressure, but rather facing a well-prepared opponent.
Things didn’t go our way from the very beginning on Mirage, especially on my side. It just felt like nothing was kind of going my way. I felt like they were just a step ahead of us, so it was just annoying. I knew that it’s not because I felt pressure or [lacked] confidence. It was just honestly very unfortunate at the beginning of the map… It’s never nice to start so slow.
Despite the early deficit, Falcons managed to stabilize on their CT side, nearly pushing the map the distance. “We were very close to turning it around and actually winning on Mirage, but some things didn’t go our way in the end,” NiKo lamented.
Looking ahead to Rio
With a couple of weeks to reset before the upcoming event in Rio, NiKo remains optimistic about Team Falcons’ trajectory, emphasizing that the squad is losing by razor-thin margins rather than getting blown out.
We have to look at the match that we have played and just see where we can progress and make improvements. I wouldn’t say that we are too far from making deep runs since the matches that we are losing are very close. I think we just need a bit more confidence right now in these games… and I think this is what we’ll try to focus on.
For Falcons, the talent is undeniably there, but finding that missing confidence in the closing moments will be the key to turning these narrow losses into deep tournament runs.
See the interview with NiKo after the match here.
