Falcons disappointed in their final event of the year as a run of five top-four finishes in a row came to an abrupt end at the hands of Team Spirit at the StarLadder Budapest Major.

After the game, Falcons coach Danny “zonic” Sorensen told Esports.net that Spirit “surprised” them and that his team made “too many mistakes” as a result.

Falcons Fail to Soar

Spirit banned one of Falcons’ weaker maps, Inferno, and as such, the veto looked favorable for the Saudi Arabian organization. Inferno being gone allowed for Falcons to opt for one of its stronger maps as the decider, and they opted for a punish pick of Nuke to open the series.

That pick backfired, however, with a strong CT side from Spirit leaving the Falcons team “surprised with some of their aggression” according to zonic. However, the legendary Dane was also quick to say it wasn’t just down to Spirit’s strengths.

He told Esports.net: “I also think we had good situations when we wanted to go in and didn’t capitalize on them or get the trades off. That’s something we have to do better.”

Missed opportunities and a lack of composure seemed to be the tale of the day for Falcons; they also lost Dust2 despite once holding a favourable 11-5 lead on their CT side. zonic was simple in his assessment, saying: “I think the nerves got to us a little bit.”

That isn’t to say he was using that as an excuse, though, as he also criticised the team’s communication, missed utility, and their failure to fall back on their preparation or protocols as rounds got tough. He also heaped praise on one Spirit player, however, saying that their much-maligned star Ivan “zweih” Gogin “went crazy.” An unavoidable truth, zweih did impress as he put up a monstrous 2.17 ratings across all CT rounds in the series, whilst also providing an ace on each map. 

zonic Lambasts “Unacceptable” Year

The loss to Spirit means that Falcons’ year has now come to an abrupt end. Their only trophy of the year came way back in April, at PGL Bucharest, before two key roster changes: Abdul “degster” Gasanov and Emil “Magisk” Reig departed for Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov and Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin.

The lack of trophies is something that zonic labelled as “unacceptable.” The coach told Esports.net that “The ambition of the team is to win trophies, and we haven’t managed to do that.”

However, his criticism of the team wasn’t without praise. As he acknowledged the strong run of form that closed out the year and the changes that were made to the roster, zonic added that he is “satisfied,” saying: “of course, we want to win trophies and we have to put ourselves in situations to win them, but I think we’ve done that. We haven’t missed a playoffs since Cologne, and we’ve also been very close to winning trophies. If we can overcome that hurdle, then next season we won’t be talking about four or five second places, but maybe even a couple of trophies.”

Before that, the team will have to get through the obligatory amounts of speculation that will come their way. ‘Just one more star’ is the common phrase used in Counter-Strike, and both Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy and Jimi “Jimpphat” Salo have been linked with the team in the past.