Before the grand final of IEM Dallas 2025, we had the opportunity to speak with Team Falcons ’ star player — Nikola " NiKo " Kovač. He talked about Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov’s adaptation to the team, evaluated their performance at the Dallas tournament, and shared their goals for the upcoming BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025.

You finally reunited with m0NESY. Are you happy with that?
Yeah, of course. He’s an amazing kid, amazing player. I’m happy to have him by my side. The team got a lot stronger once we brought him in, so yeah — happy to have him.

How did he adapt to the team? Everything seems to have gone smoothly. It looks like your synergy is making your game much better. How do you feel about it?
Yeah, I think the results kind of speak for themselves. Ever since we got him, we made it to two finals, and now we’re here in the semifinals. Unfortunately, we lost to Vitality , but that’s just three events. The team is feeling very good. I also think he’s doing well individually. Obviously, we still need some time to implement him into our system and things like that.

We’re going to have a bootcamp after this event to prepare for the Major. But so far, it looks very promising, and we’re starting to have higher expectations now that he’s here and we’re getting better results. So I would say everything is going according to plan.

Yeah, that was a tough game yesterday. Do you think 3rd-4th place is good for you guys, or is it still not enough?
I mean, obviously, we all want to win events and lift trophies — that’s our ultimate goal, right? But our priority has been preparing for the Austin Major as best as we can.

As for this result, I think finishing 3rd-4th and losing to Vitality is okay. If we had lost the semifinals to, I don’t know, let’s say The MongolZ or someone like that, it would’ve felt worse, you know? But losing to Vitality in the semifinals isn’t the worst thing. Obviously, we wanted to beat them this time — and it was close again — but yeah.

What are your team goals for the upcoming Major?
We’re going there to try to win it.

How do you feel about bringing Cache back? Especially considering you’ve had some awesome highlights on that map — like your ace against Titan.
Yeah, I mean, I always loved Cache. I haven’t really played much of the new version, so I don’t really know what it looks like. I saw that Valve bought it, but I’m still not sure if they’re going to put it into the competitive map pool. I’d be happy to have it back. I’ve always liked the map.

I think it’s a cool map. If they bring it back, I think it’s going to need some adjustments — the map was a bit too simple, if that makes sense. So yeah, we’ll see how it turns out.

Do you have any words for the fans out there?
Thank you guys for watching and supporting us. See you at Austin .