"It has been a rough couple of months"- karrigan on FaZe Clan's recent form and CS:GO ESL Pro League S18 playoffs expectations (Exclusive)

The playoffs stage of the CS: GO ESL Pro League Season 18 is set to start for FaZe Clan as they will be taking on the formidable MOUZ that dismantled FURIA yesterday (September 26). The young roster led by up-and-coming in-game leader Kamil "siuhy" Szkaradek will find a great test to prove his prowess as a captain against the experienced FaZe.

While FaZe has not had the best results over the past couple of months, the team is still home to some of the most formidable talent in the world. Led by veteran and legend of the game, Finn "karrigan" Andersen, the matchup will be an exciting clash between old stalwarts and young guns.

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karrigan talks about FaZe Clan's struggles, the impact of NEO as the new head coach, and general thoughts on CS:GO ESL Pro League Season 18

In an interview with Sportskeeda Esports ahead of the CS:GO ESL Pro League Season 18 playoffs, FaZe Clan's in-game leader, karrigan, sat down to touch on FaZe's inconsistent and subpar form at recent tournaments, the teams that surprised him at ESL Pro League so far and his team's mentality heading into playoffs.

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Q: How has the team's atmosphere been after making it to the playoffs stage?

karrigan: We have been doing good after qualifying for the playoffs, even though the game against Natus Vincere wasn't the outcome that we wanted. We decided already, prior to the group stage, to stay in Malta this week in order to have a bootcamp.

We have been staying here and preparing in order to get ready for the playoffs and come in hot. It has been good so far, and I am looking forward to playing here again on Wednesday.

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Q: Coming to the loss against NAVI, this has been the second instance in a short span of time where the team has lost to NAVI in a 0-2 fashion. What has been going wrong for FaZe in this particular matchup?

karrigan: I don't think it's specifically NAVI. I think we have lost a lot of games to teams such as G2 Esports, Virtus.pro, and so on. I don't think it is something specific with the enemies. I think we haven't played at our best level at all since Blast Fall Groups, so it has been a couple of rough months for the team.

So, I don't really look into any matchups right now because if we are not playing at our best, then it's very hard to see whether we have a specific problem with our opponents or not. Our biggest issue has been our map pool, and therefore, we are having harder matchups compared to other teams.

The matchups are very hard for us to predict right now. We know our map pool is a problem, and that's what we have been working on in order to get ready for playoffs.

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Q: Sportskeeda recently had a talk with Twistzz, and he stated that the team's new head coach, NEO, has been quite accommodating and helping you out in your duties as an IGL. How has his impact on the team been at EPL so far?

karrigan: I think NEO has a different role than RobbaN. It's quite obvious that it was hard to replace the latter one-for-one. Therefore, we had to go for a different route, and I think this was the time to bring in a guy who could offer different stuff to the table. He is trying to improve the team and tries to challenge the team in different situations.

I think he has done a great job so far, considering this is his first time coaching. We took it easy on him at the beginning, and I guided him as well. I think it is important for the team on what we should try to focus on, and so far, he has been doing a great job. He compliments me pretty well, and he compliments the team very well, too.

Obviously, we will have to see it in the results. Whatever is happening behind the doors, we know it's going in the right direction, but the results are not showing as we want them to be. This is hurting the team a lot, as we can't build momentum or build any confidence right now.

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Q: MOUZ or FURIA will be your opponents in the playoffs matchup. Who do you think FaZe is most likely going to play against, and what are your general thoughts on these two teams?

karrigan: I think it is 50-50 between MOUZ and FURIA. I think it is very hard to predict and simultaneously hard for us to prepare. It's going to be an interesting game to see as both teams have a high peak but have also been struggling lately with some of their matches which is why they were third and fourth in their respective groups.

Coming into playoffs, it's good to have a harder bracket. Obviously, we would always want the easiest bracket, but having a hard bracket also has its perks. I feel like this is the bracket where we can build some momentum by beating a team like MOUZ or FURIA and meeting G2. If that happens, I think we will be on a good road as a team, and the deeper we go into the tournament, the more dangerous we can be.

I think everybody wants to play us early in the group stage and early during the playoffs, but no one wants to play us during the finals, but we have to get there first. Hopefully, this can fire some motivation up into the guys and bring some more passion and energy to the team in order to have a chance at winning probably the final CS:GO tournament.

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Q: Have there been any specific teams that have stood out to you at the tournament so far?

karrigan: I have looked at all the groups from a surface level but not completely in depth. There have been some teams that have surprised me, like Eternal Fire. Movistar Riders were another team that I think played pretty well. Complexity is another team that had a good performance as well.

Besides these teams, favorites such as ENCE and Vitality performed really well. These were the teams that surprised me the most at the event so far.

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Q: Any final thoughts you would like to say to the fans supporting FaZe and you?

karrigan: Thank you to everyone who is supporting us. It's not easy times at the moment, but hopefully, we can bring one last trophy home in CS:GO. After this, we are hoping to bring some extra fire to CS2 and try to replicate the 2022 year that we had yet again.