headtr1ck: "It feels great that we're kind of the Ukrainian national team here"

In one of the opening matchups for Stage Two of the BLAST.tv Austin Major, Ukrainian squad B8 shocked by taking down Falcons to deny one of the tournament's favorites an easy win while also ruining many Pick'ems in the process.

Following this shock upset, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke to B8 AWPer Daniil "headtr1ck" Valitov about the win and what it means to represent Ukraine in Austin.

The full interview can be found below on YouTube or in text form below. All questions and answers below have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling taking down a massive team like Falcons to start Stage Two?

Yeah I don't know, I'm just feeling great that we showed our good game and we didn't try to think about them. We checked their last three months and they've only lost to Vitality and MOUZ so we understood it would be a hard game but we also understood it's a Bo1 and we've already played in this tournament and if we play our game we have a decent chance.

Our team started well and we had great individual performances which helped us take good rounds on the T-side and then on CT-side we managed our economy well. We had maybe one or two eco rounds that they took but I'm happy we won and hopefully we'll keep playing like this.

Do you think B8 could replicate this in a Bo3 environment based on how you played today?

Best of three is obviously harder because they have their own map pick where they feel more comfortable I would say. But yeah, Ancient was a good map for both of us in terms of stats. Maybe the Bo1 factor worked but most important for us was we won it.

It's been some time since we've seen an all-Ukrainian squad perform so well at the Major. With that, has B8 been receiving a lot of support from home and how does that feel?

Yeah it feels great, thanks to our Ukrainian neighbors for support, and it feels great that we're kind of the national team here because for us right now, it's important.