Vitality's William "mezii" Merriman spoke to HLTV.org about his team’s victory over FURIA in their debut match at IEM Cologne 2024. Merriman expressed satisfaction with his team's performance.
"One should never expect it to be easy. I think, especially for us, we put a lot of effort into making a strong start at the tournament, as we’ve had issues with that at previous events. I think today we made sure we brought the energy we needed from the very beginning.
We’ve already seen many underdogs winning their matches, and we didn’t want to be the team that loses as well, so we gave it our all. I’m happy with how we played today."
The British esports player also shared his expectations for the upcoming match against FaZe in the group stage.
"They looked good in their first match, so that always means something. For us, the key is to ensure we stay focused… It’s another challenge, another game, and as I said, we can’t spend too much time worrying about their problems. We’ve had issues ourselves, so we just need to focus on one game at a time.
We know what FaZe are capable of, they have strong individual players and are a team that has won several tournaments. So for us, the key is to focus on FaZe. We know they can be strong, and we need to give it our all and play as we did in this first game and how we play in practice."
The IEM Cologne 2024 is taking place from August 7 to 18 in Cologne, Germany, featuring 24 teams. The total prize pool for the event is $1 million, and the winner will also earn spots at IEM Katowice 2025 and the BLAST Premier World Final 2024.