FNC Engh: "One of the most important parts that fades when you lose like this is the faith in what you're doing"

The weeks continue to pass, but Fnatic's results show little sign of improvement. At the end of the second week, EMEA's most decorated organization was still in contention to finish first in its group. However, following an 0-2 week in which they lost to Eternal Fire and Team Heretics without taking a single map, Fnatic dropped to second-to-last place in the standings. To top it all off, the team ends with a stinging 0-13 inflicted by the Spanish team.

Their road to the playoffs will now have to go through the Play-Ins, where they are set to face VCL team Enterprise Esports next Friday. Ahead of the second phase of VCT EMEA Stage 2, Fnatic head coach Andrey "Engh" Sholokhov shared his thoughts with Sheep Esports.

Andrey "Engh" Sholokhov: “Our game was pretty intense and close during the first map and the second one was completely disgusting, let's say, if I can use any correct word. So to be honest, I don't have a lot of emotions at least right now personally because I think the things that we tried to do just didn't work. As for why they didn’t work out, we will need to figure it out tomorrow or in a couple of days.

Engh: We started pretty well on Summit in attack, I agree. We had insane comps, insane game plans, a lot of things went our way. I would say players played insanely well individually, but then in defense, we had a couple of misunderstandings and we just let Heretics feel their game. And since then, it was kind of a mess. It's hard to stop them individually because they're an insane team. Everybody knows that they can wake up at any moment and kind of shoot insanely well and play insanely well. Overall, it's the thing that we need to figure out after we change our comp on Summit, our defense side, for the last. Three times I think we actually experienced the same scenarios when we have a lot of time and ended up making the same mistakes. And yeah, we just need to figure out what the best way to play defense for us and stop maybe copying other teams and kind of just play our game more.

Engh: To be honest, when I joined, I thought I was going to do a different job compared to what I'm actually doing right now. I thought I was going to do more macro stuff, like more actual things that the head coach is doing. But then I saw that Jake (Jake "Boaster" Howlett) and Casper (Casper "Desmo" Rasmussen) had an insane synergy between each other, so I was going to do, let's say more of an assistant coach job, I would say. What I mean is that I'm just giving advice because I think they have a pretty good understanding of the game, how to play the game and what we should play etc.

So we also multiple times had a conversation with the team and my responsibility was to strengthen the leadership. And right now, overall, my responsibility is individual work with some players, on some maps specifically, like, let's say, when to lurk, how to lurk, or like how to use utilities, etc. But to be honest, I'm actually enjoying it. I know it's also a pretty good experience for me, even if not result-wise, but overall work-wise because just working individually with such insane players daily makes you also think about the game differently.

Engh: It wasn’t a personal one because Fnatic is one of the best clubs in the world in VALORANT, so they have a big scout list and players that they want. And Cloud was just this type of player that Fnatic from what I know, always wanted to sign. Even two years ago, three years ago, they always rated him very high, and I did too, because I feel like he's an insane player. And also, when we removed him from his IGL responsibilities, he kind of started playing much better. He's still trying to find his place in our team, I would say.

But today, to be honest, even with these losses, I still was proud of him because when we were down like 0-7 or 0-8, he was always like, “Guys! Guys! Let's go! Let's go!”, trying to push us forward. So it was nice to see because it’s very important to be yourself and keep pushing people around, pushing their limits when things go wrong completely. And he showed it today.

Engh: Of course I can’t reveal everything because we will play on Friday, but I would say we will need to get the maximum from us and just believe in the way we want to play the game. One of the most important parts that fades when you lose like this is the faith in what you're doing. ChatGPT answer, let's say, but I feel like it's very important to have this kind of faith in the things that we're doing.

Engh: I think they improved a lot. First of all, one of the key factors that is working right now in their team is N4RRATE (Marshall Massey) role. I always say that he’s a world class player, mega talented and I feel like having him right now in a Duelist and Chamber role opens up a lot of opportunities. He's just shining in this role and doing so much, like a lot of individual plays, and then everyone grows around it. I really believe that’s why we kind of signed him instead of Sheydos (Bogdan Naumov) in Stage 1 because we knew that if we found the proper place for him, we were going to be instantly better. He is like let's say, in my top 5 players that I have ever worked with individually. You just need to know how to play with him a bit, and then you will understand. Then, of course, there are a lot of other changes, but I feel like that's the most crucial one.

As for their improvement, of course, I can feel happiness, I can feel regrets, I can feel sadness about myself. But I think the most important thing is just that I'm really happy because I might have failed as a coach, but I'm actually successful as a manager because, who collected these boys? Who taught them about a lot of stuff [Laughs]? So there are some positives, let's say.

Engh: I can’t say a lot of stuff now. The most important thing for us right now is to find our game and find the way we want to play the game and believe in it. That’s what I feel we’re lacking sometimes. And it's not only about compositions and the things that we run. It's more about that we need to play modern VALORANT. Now we will have three days where we're going to work a lot. And I hope we figure out what's best for us, let's say.

About teams, of course, I respect every tier 2 team because I think it's much more stressful, maybe like from my perspective to play in tier 2 because, let’s be honest, in our game we're not running the best system for tier 2. It’s like a basic gladiator game where you push them inside some big pit to fight against each other so I think they want to prove themselves that they are all kind of dangerous.

If I need to speak about someone precisely, of course I would like to play against Enterprise Esports, because of Magnum (Martin Peňkov). He’s one of the players that I would say I really regret that we stopped playing with him on KC. I messaged him in the past because I feel like it was my mistake that I stopped playing with him. He's such a nice guy, very professional, one of the best in terms of work ethic. Every coach and every teammate would like to work with him. So yeah, I would like to play against them and see, because I think they are the best tier 2 team right now and maybe one of the best in play-in teams.”