It’s been one hell of a journey for Team Vitality and Dan “apEX” Madesclaire but they have finally lifted the trophy at IEM Cologne 2024. The four maps were incredibly close, with two going into round after round of overtime. We got to catch up with apEX just after the grand finals win.
Bruno: Okay, so congrats. Hype on the win. It was a long road, three finals and a tough one with this today.
How does it feel to finally make it and lift that trophy?
apEX: It’s a crazy feeling. Finally getting this trophy is.. when you chase something for ten years and you finally get it, it’s crazy. I remember the first time I came was Cologne was 2014. Lost in semis in a close game. I was like, maybe, maybe I’m never gonna win this one. But when you really work hard, you can get through things. So I’m just really proud.
Credit: Sophie McCarthy
Bruno: And the crowd was amazing today for both teams.
Does that have any effect on you when you’re in the game?
apEX: No, there are just so many moments you play with the crowd. If you do good rounds and you cheer with the crowd, with your side at least. So no, no, it’s just positive in general.
Bruno: There were so many close games today with the over times.
How do you keep it cool under those circumstances, especially in a best of five when there’s a lot of games?
apEX: Well, you try to focus on the present even though it’s tight, etcetera. You try to focus on the round and what you can do and how can you help the team not focusing too much on the score or whatever. So yeah, that’s what we tried to do. We did a lot of shit, but at the end it was good.
Bruno: So what happened on mirage? You had three match points in the overtime, 19-15.
So how did it all go down?
apEX: Well, I think I called up pretty bad on those rounds. I should have slowed it up. And we played fast and we lost the run too fast. So yeah, that was a pretty rough one.
Bruno: You had a great start. It was looking like you were going to run over that. But then they (NAVI) started coming back.
What were you thinking in that moment and how did you keep it together?
apEX: Well, I think that we played a really good T side and then we started to feel the pressure a little bit and doing a lot of mistakes. But then we kept our cool because we knew we had the big lead and at the end we got the trophy anyway.
Bruno: And you were in two finals already this year and you didn’t win it the trophy.
What was different today that allowed you to win?
apEX: Well, when you lose two finals in the same year, you know what went bad and how you have to correct it. I don’t think we played that good today, but at least we had the mentality and we gave our best. That’s what really matters today.
And yeah, we lost the EPL finals, we lost Dallas final. But it doesn’t matter when you win Cologne.
Bruno: Thank you and congratulations.
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