Não Tem Como went to ESL One Belo Horizonte for a different reason than what they and the fans wanted.
The star players from the Brazilian team, Lincoln “fnx” Lau and João “felps” Vasconcellos, went to the Mineirinho stadium in Belo Horizonte on Friday to talk to the press in a private area. The closest the players got to their excited fans at that moment was seeing them from a distance through the entrance of that area, where a security guard prevented fans from trespassing. But the fans were also patiently waiting for some attention from their idols.
Não Tem Como could have seen thousands of fans, many more than they saw through that opening, if they had won any best-of-three at ESL One Belo Horizonte.
The Brazilian team lost their first series of the event at the ESL studio on Wednesday against Mousesports 2-0 and was then eliminated from the tournament on Thursday, still at the studio, by the German players from BIG. NTC started winning their series against BIG, but they lost control on the second map and were ran over 16-4 on the third and final map of the series, Dust II.
Marcelo “chelo” Cespedes, who joined NTC weeks before the tournament right after leaving Luminosity Gaming, talked to Dot Esports about the team’s practice before the event and what he thinks about the future of the current roster of Não Tem Como.
NTC prepared for ESL One Belo Horizonte with a boot camp in Germany, which was the team’s second in the country, right?
Chelo: The other guys from the roster have practiced there. It was my first time there, and on Monday, we will return to practice for the Minor, which is our focus right now. And we will crush it.
Did you guys play BIG at the boot camp in Germany?
We played Dust II and destroyed them.
You are the most recent player on the team. When you joined them, how was the vibe among players in a personal and in-game level?
When I joined NTC, I had just left Luminosity Gaming and joined NTC right after. We went to the office in Brazil, then I sat down and felps and fnx were by my side, and I thought “dude, what the hell?” It was bizarre when I sat between them. We fit together very well in-game and outside of it too. We are becoming close friends and this friendship will grow much more.
NTC’s roster changed a lot even before the team’s debut. In your current form, do you think this is the roster to start having mid-term and long-term plans or are things still a bit unstable?
We should go with this roster until the end of the year or the most we can. We will win everything because we have five players who are skilled enough to conquer the whole world.
You were sadly eliminated from the tournament. How do you think you could’ve had a bigger impact on the matches you played at ESL One Belo Horizonte? Would you change something from your performance?
I think I wouldn’t [change anything] in general. I think it was more about the whole team. We had very little time to practice. But individually, I remember two rounds on Overpass that were crucial. One was a two-vs-five that I eliminated four and lost a one-vs-one in the end. That was sad. I had another two-vs-three that we played very bad and I lost a two-vs-two as well. It was very easy. Individually, those were it, but in general, it was the whole team.
Do you think you guys struggle to come back from a big disadvantage in matches, like it happened on Dust II [against BIG]?
When we are losing… everyone is quite experienced here. This doesn’t upset us. What happened is that we started losing and had a distracted start, we were a bit anxious. But we never feel down, you can’t feel down or you’ll lose control. CS is much more about psychological control than skill, and we never feel down.
How long do you think it will take for you all to be coordinated with each other and playing at your peak as a team?
I think that to reach that, two or three more months of practice. Reaching an individual peak [will take less time] because if we focus, we can do it. But as a group, it’s much harder to create a connection with everyone, to have synergy. This is harder and takes longer.
