mch: "Our main goal this year is qualifying for the big leagues"

As day two was brought to an end, we caught up with TeamOne's Jean-Michel "mch" D'Oliveira to hear about the team moving to North America and their outlook moving forward.

TeamOne succeeded in their main goal on the first day as they managed to qualify for the second playoff stage with two wins and one defeat. The loss came against MVP PK, while the Brazilians took down subtLe and Alpha Red quite convincingly.

The North American scene has been very welcoming of TeamOne

Therefore, TeamOne had the second day off and used it for practice and preparation. After the Brazilians finished a scrimming session and as the venue was emptying out, we sat down with Jean-Michel "⁠mch⁠" D'Oliveira who gave us a lot of insight on their team and what they have been doing recently.

Let's start with the move to North America, how did that happen?

We already had plans about moving to NA, at least six months ago. We were already settled to move to NA anyway, and when the beginning of the year came, we just did it. The thing that really helped us to reach this status with our organization and made them feel like we should go there were our results in South America. Ever since the last lineup with bit and pava they were already doing good, me and caike joined and we kept up the good results, being the best team in the region. So it was a natural move for us.

Coming there, what are the first impressions of playing and living in NA?

I think the NA scene has been very welcoming of us, we are getting a lot of practice against good teams. It feels like it's way more professional because we can work in the normal work hours. Back in Brazil, we always had to start at the end of the afternoon and go all through the night, until 3 or 4 AM. So we can have a more professional schedule, we can play against better teams. I mean, there is no denying, there is a lot of talent in South America but we aren't on the NA level right now, but I think we are changing our game and adapting to the pace really fast.

Recently, you were in the ECS qualifier and you made it to the last match, but didn't make it through. Can you tell me about that result and making it so far so early into your NA career?

We were still pretty new to playing in North America when the ECS qualifier came up and I think we understood the pace of the game really fast and we already felt that we were ready to face some of those teams. When we got to play those guys we knew that we had a shot at making the spot. We knew that it wasn't going to be easy, but we knew that we had a shot.

In the end, going that far and not making it through... we were up 1-0 in maps and 12-5 on the second map, it was a little bit heartbreaking for us. At the same time, it was way better to lose like that than just getting smashed because we know that we are on the right path. I feel that there are big things coming for us from now on.

Can you give me your general feelings coming here to WESG, what did you think you could do?

Right after we finished the ECS qualifier, we didn't have a lot of time to cry about it, we just kept our training very hard and very serious and we already knew our group, we had a little bit of time. Once we saw the teams that are in our group we felt that we definitely had to go through. I mean, Canada has really good players, MVP PK is really good, about Alpha Red we didn't know a lot about. We knew they were good teams, but that we would be able to make it through the group.

Now we are in the position that we wanted to be, in the second group stage, where we will face tougher teams and it feels like we can upset a lot of those higher tier teams if we can get our groove on. I think that our game can be really strong, but we kind of need momentum, we need to become more stable. I still think we can cause some upsets and reach the playoffs, that's what I hope for.

The only game you lost was against MVP PK. What was the struggle there? Is it, as you mentioned, the momentum not going your way, or was there something else that the Koreans caught you off guard with there?

We started both halves up 4-0 or 5-0, so we had a really good start which, usually when we have, we are playing at our best. We felt that we were going to do it but they did some adjustments and I feel like they studied us very well. I mean, Koreans, Asians in general, they are known for studying the game and their opponents really well. They made some adjustments to their play that caught us off guard. They didn't let us execute out plan, they were getting picks before we could execute, they were using double AWPs and we didn't expect that from them, they simply didn't give us the space.

In the second half, we were making a comeback, after we lost the first half 10-5 we got 4-0 in the second half and then they won a round. This round was the round of the match because we were going to go far, but we lost a 3v2 situation we played really badly. I think that, even though they were the better team, we still had a shot at winning the match. We don't know how the other groups are going to be yet, but maybe it was for the better. Anyway, it's always good to play against good teams, teams playing in the higher level than us. We are always learning something new, every day.

Returning to the North American part, what are your goals there, either something you put up yourself or something that the organization wants you to reach?

We don't have any set goals, but everything that we have done up to now leads us to think that we can make ECS and ESL Pro League, this is our main goal for this year, qualifying for the big leagues. It's very good for us to be in NA because they have a lot of online qualifiers, for IEM, DreamHack tournaments, so we can be playing at this higher level every month. We are going to raise the bar of our game anyway. But our goal is to make it to the pro leagues, for sure.

I'm not even sure which team you are now from Brazil to make the jump to North America, and obviously, it all started with FalleN and his team coming over. How do you see that part, have you been in contact with them at all, do you see FalleN as someone who was a leader for Brazilian CS in a way?

I think that every team or person that does something and has a lot of success in it, they deserve all of the praise. I'm definitely sure that if it wasn't for the core of SK, Brazilian CS wouldn't have won so many things and had so much opportunities, so we are definitely thankful for them about that. However, I think that now we are creating our own path, we are doing our own thing. But we definitely look up to them in a way because we want to reach the things that they are reaching.

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