Interview with Team Heretics’ coaches neilzinho and weber: ‘I don’t mind which opponent we play against. The only team I don’t want is the team we were today’

Team Heretics lost to Fnatic yesterday evening to once again finish in second place at a major tournament.

Esports News UK interviewed the British coaching duo of Neil ‘neilzinho’ Finlay and Brandon William ‘weber’ Weber after their Upper Bracket Final match on Friday, May 16th.

This was before their subsequent matches against Team Liquid and Fnatic in the VCT EMEA Playoffs over the last weekend.

They shared their thoughts on what keeps Valorant certified fresh, working as one, and their attitude toward Masters Toronto. 

You both came from Counter-Strike as former players and then coaches.
What was the reason behind the transition to Valorant over Counter-Strike?

weber: For me, think in terms of playing, I kind of overstayed my welcome in terms of playing. 

I think a lot of CS teams were tried and tested and then tested again and then tested once again to the point where it’s just a pure regurgitation of players and cores, which I think was relatively boring to play in. 

So in a sense, I thought it was something different, a new game with new potential prospects, and maybe greener pastures.

neilzinho: Same thing as me, pretty much as well as Valorant was quite exciting. I think CS, for me at least, got a bit stale, and I just wanted a new challenge. 

So everything Weber said plus that for me. 

With Valorant celebrating its fifth anniversary. Do you still find the game interesting, or would you say going the same way as Counter-Strike? 

neilzinho: For me, it’s different every time. CS, you rarely got patches that changed how the game plays.

Whereas in Valorant, you’ve got new agents, you have new maps, way more than CS.

Obviously, in CS, everyone can throw the same flashes and the same smokes, but as soon as you get an agent in Valorant that can do something different, the meta changes, and it’s constantly trying to innovate.

neilzinho

So for me, it’s the same as what it was when I played it first.

weber: I can’t really add more to that. Valorant is constantly innovating in terms of agents and maps.

They change the maps and the map pool, which then changes the meta. So it’s always fresh and something new to work on, and keeps us on our toes.

You’ve been working together (on-and-off) for a long time. Who’s good cop and who’s bad cop?

neilzinho: Depends on the day honestly. Usually, I’m more chill, but sometimes if something annoys me, I can also be bad cop. 

I think we’re both like that. We can both be nice, but we can both be bad sometimes. So yeah, there’s not a clear divide right now.

neilzinho

Would you say that summarises your work dynamic when coaching together?

neilzinho: Yeah, pretty much I think. 

I’ve had assistant coaches and coaches working with me in the past who didn’t see the game the same way as myself.

But with Weber, I’ve known him for like 15 years now, so we see the game the same way. 

We think the same way. We want the same goal. There’s not one person saying, ‘let’s do it like this’.

It’s always, if we do something, it’s a joint decision.

weber: Totally agree there, so there’s not much more for me to add. 

For Team Heretics, 2024 was the year of ‘being on the brink of success’, including coming second at VCT Champions.
What was your approach or plan of action on that first day of training at the start of this year?

neilzinho: I think we wanted to try to keep the momentum going, but we made a few too many mistakes.  

We lost our identity a little bit, and it took Kickoff to give us a wake-up call. 

neilzinho

Then again, today (Friday, May 16th) we played like we did Kickoff, which is something we need to look at because it happened again. 

We went unbeaten for the whole of Stage 1, and then also in the Playoffs.

But now we’ve just shown up and it’s nowhere near the team that we’ve been for the last couple of weeks.

weber: It’s been a reoccurring theme and something that we’ve been working on with our performance coach Ryan (Ryan Scollan) 

I feel as if we’re probably the most prepared that we could have been for [the Upper Bracket Final].

In terms of the offseason, we were testing and trying things and, as neilzinho said, we made some mistakes with that. 

Which is fine, we’re allowed to make mistakes. It’s just how we bounce back from them, and that’s something we need to evaluate from [the Upper Bracket Final]. 

And it’s a pretty short turnaround, we’ve got maybe 21 hours now until we play again, so it’s something that we need to do, and hopefully our experience will pull us through with that.

You still have a guaranteed spot at Masters Toronto. So what’s your focus on now? 
Is it the Lower Bracket Finals or straightforward to Masters Toronto? 

neilzinho: No, for us we never look forward. We try to always look at the next game.

We aren’t even thinking about Toronto right now, and Toronto’s on a completely different patch.

So that kind of goes into what we’re saying earlier, since there’s a completely different map pool. 

For us, the main focus is on [the Lower Bracket Final], and then hopefully the game after in the Grand Final.

That’s our focus in the next two days, and then we’ll look at Toronto when the time comes, but it’s still quite a while away. 

When it’s time for Toronto, it’ll be time for Toronto, but that’s not now.

weber

Is there a team you don’t want to face at Masters Toronto?

weber: Don’t care, we’ll play anyone.

We’re not thinking about who we’re playing, we’re just thinking about ourselves and making sure we’re prepared as much as we can be.

So I don’t care who we’re against.  

neilzinho: I don’t mind which opponent we play against.

The only team I don’t want to have in Toronto is the team that our team was today (Friday, May 16th).

That’s the team I don’t want to see in Toronto, because that’s not us.

I just want to make sure we’re playing the way that I know we can.

neilzinho