gla1ve: "We don't aim to make the playoffs, we just want to win games"

gla1ve, who is the captain of Astralis, shared his expectations for the performance of his team at IEM Cologne 2022. In a conversation with journalists, the 27-year-old Danish esportsman concluded that the team does not set itself the task of winning the championship, but strives to win in every particular match.

We strive to win every single match. We understand that we haven't been that strong lately, so we don't have any goals for this tournament. We do not set ourselves the task of getting into the playoffs, but simply want to win matches. Because every time we say something, or every time we play tournaments, we don't make the playoffs. Yes, we had the Roobet Cup 2022 where we made it to the semi-finals and the Pinnacle Cup Championship 2022 where we were in the final, but we weren't really satisfied with the game. But if we can achieve a good result at IEM Cologne 2022, it will be good for us.

It is very difficult to talk about the individual level of the game and manage it in any way. I mean when you play badly you don't understand why it happens. You always want to find a way to perform well in every match, but there is no one solution, and everyone has to somehow find it for themselves.

So the individual level is really difficult, but we are working on it. I also try to find my game. Sometimes it's difficult. Now I try to be more of a team leader and maybe blame myself less. Now one of my teammates can cover me by making an exchange if I couldn't make a frag. It works pretty well, but of course hurts my stats. I try not to think about it and focus on doing what's best for the team. I want to try to win as many matches as possible and not worry about how my individual stats look.

Recall that the Astralis team managed to reach the group stage of IEM Cologne 2022. Following the results of the Play-In stage, the Danish team managed to lose to 00NATION (6:16), but coped with Complexity Gaming (2:1) and BIG (2:0).

IEM Cologne 2022 takes place from 5 to 17 July in Germany at the Hyatt Regency Cologne and LANXESS arena. As part of the championship, 24 teams from Europe, the CIS, Oceania, China, North and South America are fighting for a prize pool of $1,000,000, as well as rating points in the BLAST Premier table.

Prize pool distribution at IEM Cologne 2022

• 1st place: $400,000 + 3,200 BLAST Premier points
• 2nd place: $180,000 + 1,600 BLAST Premier points
• 3rd-4th place: $80,000 + 1,000 BLAST Premier points
• 5th-6th place: $40,000 + 300 BLAST Premier points
• 7th-8th place: $24,000 + 300 BLAST Premier points
• 9th-12th place: $16,000
• 13th-16th place: $10,000
• 17th-20th place: Sprout, TYLOO, Imperial Esports and BIG - $4,500
• 21st-24th place: paiN Gaming, Complexity Gaming, MIBR and ORDER — $2,500