NiKo believes G2 are \u201cclose\u201d to winning trophies: \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of time before we do it\u201d Simon Howar\/ESLAhead of G2\u2019s first match in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, Nikola \u2018NiKo\u2019 Kova\u010d said that the ESL Pro League stumble was down to the team\u2019s poor preparation after the summer break and noted that the only way is up. NiKo joined G2 Esports from FaZe in October 2020 in one of the biggest transfer deals in Counter-Strike history. He linked up with his cousin Nemanja \u2018huNter-\u2018 Kova\u010d in a squad packed with talent and that included a Major winner in Kenny \u2018kennyS\u2019 Schrub. But almost 12 months on, G2 are yet to lift a trophy with the Bosnian star. After achieving stability following Audric \u2018JaCkz\u2019 Jug\u2019s return to the team in March, they came close to breaking their title duck at IEM Cologne, only to be swept by NAVI in the best-of-five grand final. NiKo is happy with the progress G2 have made in recent months in establishing themselves as \u201ca solid top three team\u201d. However, he stressed that he will never be satisfied by just competing and that he is targeting silverware. \u201cI joined the team to win trophies, not to be top three or top five,\u201d he told Dexerto. \u201cWe are definitely not satisfied with our results. \u201cBut overall, I\u2019m really happy [with the team]. Everyone is working really hard and willing to sacrifice everything to achieve the same goals. We\u2019re on the same page in most of the things. That\u2019s the reason why we have been a bit more consistent than when I joined. \u201cI think we are very close to winning trophies. I think it still requires a lot of practice, and maybe implementing some new things or switching some roles around. \u201cI think we definitely have what it takes to win one and that it\u2019s a matter of time before we do it. I\u2019m not saying that we will create an era or anything. But I\u2019m very confident we will lift some trophies.\u201d Mental block The IEM Cologne grand final against NAVI was not as straightforward as the scoreline might suggest. G2 put up strong fights on Mirage and Nuke but ended up collapsing at the final hurdle as the CIS giants ramped up the pressure in the closing moments. Discover more: The CSGO Record That Will Never Be Broken! – And NiKo emphasized how important it would be for some of the team\u2019s players to lift a trophy, saying that a title would alleviate some of the burden. \u201cWinning a tournament definitely helps with your confidence and definitely helps with easing the pressure,\u201d NiKo said. \u201cIt helps with many aspects in the team, especially with those players who haven\u2019t won many big events. \u201cOnce we\u2019ve done it, I think confidence will slightly increase and that we will start performing a bit better when it comes to those tight games.\u201d EPL struggles G2 began the season on the wrong foot, finishing bottom of their ESL Pro League group without a single victory from five series. They even lost to Sinners, who were then ranked outside the top 20, and to a Complexity side fielding a stand-in. NiKo blamed the team\u2019s \u201csloppy\u201d approach to the tournament for their horrendous run and said that they have been hard at work in preparation for their next events. \u201cI think we were very sloppy when coming from holiday and into our first event,\u201d he explained. \u201cMaybe we made a mistake in not going to a bootcamp and deciding to have one only before the playoffs, which we, unfortunately, missed out on. \u201cI\u2019d say that was the reason why we started the season poorly.\u201d G2 will be looking to give a much better account of themselves in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups. They are the highest-ranked team in Group B and are expected to breeze into the second round after being paired with World No.48 MIBR, who are attending the event with two stand-ins. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be hard to see a worse G2 [than the one in EPL],\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cI don\u2019t think we can get any worse than that, so that\u2019s always a good sign. Read more: k0nfig reportedly set to join Astralis – \u201cWe have worked mostly on our map pool, just making sure ready we are ready on the maps we weren\u2019t before, and making sure that we are getting back in form, individually and as a team. \u201cWe had a sloppy start, which is not a good sign, but I\u2019m confident we can get back to the performances we had.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NiKo believes G2 are \u201cclose\u201d to winning trophies: \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of time before we do it\u201d Simon Howar\/ESLAhead of G2\u2019s first match in the BLAST Premier Fall Groups, Nikola \u2018NiKo\u2019 Kova\u010d said that the ESL Pro League stumble was down to the team\u2019s poor preparation after the summer break and noted that the only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}