“Catastrophic”: Experts slam BLEED following struggling start
Will we see some roster changes in the coming months on Aleksandar "kassad" Trifunović's new team?
It’s fair to say that BLEED has had a rough start to life in Counter-Strike after entering the scene in December.
This week it became clear, following a string of disappointing results, that the ambitious team won’t make it to the Major in Copenhagen, due to failing to qualify for the RMR closed qualifiers.
In the newest episode of “Talking Counter”, the three CS experts and analysts forming the podcast has discussed BLEED’s struggling beginning, head coach Aleksandar "kassad" Trifunović, and their performance in the open qualifier.
Janko "YNk" Paunović kicks off things:
- The main problem for BLEED was that they formed their lineup too late. Maybe if it was some guys who’ve played together, but you have five players that never played with each other. And you have kassad who is coming back to coach after a long time. But also the first time he has to be the GM, which is very much different because you’re the one negotiating with the players, which can change the dynamic. Maybe you were a little bit tough in negotiations, and now you’re coaching them and they’re unhappy.
- I think that made it really difficult but still… they lost to some Enterprise [#211 in the world] team. Another time it was also against a team full of no-namers.
- Two out of the three qualifiers they got eliminated on Overpass. Why are you playing Overpass with a new team? Just play f*cking Mirage, Inferno or Ancient. […] but ultimately, it’s on BLEED because they wanted to get into Counter-Strike late, YNK stated.
“Catastrophic”
At one point fellow analyst and expert, Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill, chimed in on the discussion, explaining how he believes an uneven pressure has weighed down the team but also calling it "catastrophic" that BLEED didn't advance from the open qualifier.
- The timeline is really important because I think it puts so much pressure. But also with kassad being on the desk and with all the EG and HooXi stuff that went down there’s a spotlight on kassad. And there’s a spotlight on the players as well, where lauNX is for example a prospect coming forward, hampus having another opportunity to IGL again and obviously the CeRq storyline.
- We have all these things and there’s a lot of eyes on them and it’s an organization that we know have money, so there’s so much pressure to perform on such a short timeline that it feels like it was destined to go wrong from the beginning. I did not think they would have made the Major whatsoever, but it’s catastrophic not to qualify from the open to the closed qualifier - at least to get a chance to contend against bigger names, SPUNJ said.
You can hear the entire segment about BLEED and kassad down below (from around 1:00:00).
