PAL: “We were a bunch of rejects and misfits… built around this one idea” – VCT EMEA Stage 2 Interview

After a tough loss to GIANTX that ended their VCT EMEA Stage 2 run, BBL Esports left the server with their heads held higchah. For head coach PAL, the journey through 2025 has been long, exhausting, but ultimately inspiring — a season defined by resilience, unexpected chemistry, and the belief that a team of so-called “rejects and misfits” could build something special together.

Hotspawn sat down with PAL after the series to reflect on the year, the impact of BBL’s coaching staff, the philosophy behind their upper bracket run, and what might be next for the roster.

Hotspawn: This year has been full of changes for BBL, and you took over as head coach.

How has the year been for you personally?

PAL: “Very long, very long, very exhausting. I got a lot more freedom than perhaps most assistant coaches get earlier in the year, where I played more of a strategic coach role for the team throughout Kickoff and throughout Stage 1 as well.

“So not much has particularly changed in terms of my role going into Stage 2. However, I’ve just been able to take on more of the logistical and people management side of things and have a little bit more freedom to lead in the way that I would like to after we made that roster change.”

Hotspawn: You had some additional support in the coaching staff ahead of Stage 2.

How did that impact the team?

PAL: “It’s made such a big difference because both thinkii and ZaeS have exceptional specific abilities that I really, really value.

“Thinkii has been brilliant at working especially with Lewn in particular. He should really be credited with the development of Lewn throughout this, throughout the second stage, and he was able to do a lot of the sort of small detail dirty work and work with players on an individual level whilst I took care of more the macro strategy and the strat books and running the training schedule, etc.

“And ZaeS has been a fantastic asset for me for helping to add to our strategic depth, helping to constantly analyse and have a second strategic eye on a lot of the stuff that we do, especially the new stuff that we created all the way throughout the latter half of Stage 2.

“Basically, the way it worked was myself and ZaeS would take the lead on a lot of the general macro strategy, and then thinkii and Jamppi would take a lot more of the sort of the micro, the individual stuff with people and trying to develop that side. But at the same time, both pairs would overlap with one another and we would always be constantly involved.

“So having that coaching staff of three plus a really, really competent leader in my IGL in Elias has just made the biggest difference for me. And it’s been an incredible pleasure to work with all three of them.”

Hotspawn: Your upper bracket run was extremely dominant.

How did you guys prep for those matches?

PAL: “It was very mental. The secret sauce is the game Golf With Your Friends — replacing a lot of practise time with lots of rounds of Golf With Your Friends on an almost daily basis.

“We got to a point throughout the sort of middle of Stage 2 where we’d really found what worked for us in the new meta. We knew that the players understood everything they needed to. We could see from practise they were able to execute what they understood to a super high level.

“And it then just became about main and having that mental resilience through into the later half of the season to keep performing and delivering and really wanting to win and having the energy to do that when it counted.

“So I had a little phrase that I said to the rest of my staff which was ‘positivity is greater than protocols’. There’s no point hammering away on loads of more depth to a point where people can’t remember it, when actually just a bit of a more positive environment around the place between everybody as people will actually often get you more results than anything else.

“And up until the last 36 hours it did exactly that.”

Hotspawn: Who’s the most positive person on the team? And who’s the most likely to mald?

PAL: “I think you’d have to give the most positive to Jamppi for sure. I think he is not only the one that expresses it the most, but I think the one that, through his experience, is the most resilient and he constantly has that energy to pick himself back up again, which is what makes him such a brilliant leader. Everyone else has the ability to be positive, but he comes back again and again and again.

“And in terms of malding, no one is particularly negative in this team. That’s what’s made it work. No one is out there to mald or to flame or to be frustrated at any point that they should not be outside of practise.

“And outside of the games, Magnum. Magnum’s great about complaining about everything, mostly his health. But in terms of an actual team environment, when there’s work to be done, I’m pretty happy that actually these guys are not unnecessarily negative.”

Hotspawn: Today’s series against GIANTX was tough.

What do you think went wrong?

PAL: “Unfortunately, we lost a game that we were in a very strong position to win yesterday, and that always hurts, but I think we recovered well from that fact.

“Unfortunately, we then had external mental challenges to deal with that, even though we thought we’d then got over, we were then hit with more.

“And unfortunately, today, when they first built up that momentum, we perhaps just weren’t resilient enough because we’d had to deal with so much already.

“The boys, just, at this point in the season, at this point in the last 36 hours, had just been through a little bit too much, unfortunately, and I wasn’t able to do enough to help them through that.”

Hotspawn: What’s next for BBL? Are you staying together for the off-season?

PAL: “That depends. I mean, my contract’s up, so I’m hoping they would offer me something else. So I don’t know what my future is.

“But look, I think the biggest thing is what you’ve got here is a fantastic team, a fantastic group of people that have bonded in a completely unexpected way and that’s something special. They should look for that in whatever they end up doing next year.”

Hotspawn: Why do you say “unexpected”?

PAL: “Because we were a bunch of rejects and misfits that were rejected or forgotten about from other teams in this league. And everybody came together as the last team to be built in the off-season and were built around this one idea: that everybody believes they are not only good enough to participate in the league and that they have earned their spot in this league, but instead that they can actually go on and do something quite special in this competition.

“And I think united by that one belief in themselves, we’ve managed to make it quite a long way. So I’m very proud of the five boys for being able to achieve that. And yeah, that’s something very special in itself.”

Hotspawn: If you could change one thing this year, what would it be?

PAL: “There’s not much I would change. I think that’s a very hard question to answer. I think I might have an answer for it maybe further down the line when I’ve had more time to reflect.

“But I would always wish I knew more about the guys, the men that I get to work with, earlier than I did. But perhaps, yeah, I would have liked to have made some of the changes that we eventually made later on in the season earlier on. But we had to learn certain things in order to make those changes. That’s all.”

Hotspawn: Any final shoutouts?

PAL: “Yeah, I think so. I think to the five boys that have had me work them all the way throughout the year. And they have gone and done it and trusted me every single time.

“To thinkii and to ZaeS, who have stepped in halfway through the season into my system, into my ways of doing things and just without question done everything and more than I could have ever asked for them and just given it absolutely everything.

“To chiwa, who’s playing on Joblife in tier two, for the massive impact he had on the culture of this team when it was being built at the beginning and the love that he’s always showed us.

“For vakk, for being there at the beginning of the season and Kickoff, for winning a 1v2 clutch against Fnatic on Split after a massive comeback. For being a very special part of this group.

“And to Sinan (Luinwes) and to Dağhan (da1moN) as the two managers of this team. They have given everything, they have sacrificed personally, massively, just so that those of us based in Berlin could continue doing the job on the day-to-day basis.

“And I think that whole group of us that have worked on this project throughout this year. I think every single person that I’ve mentioned deserves a lot of love from everybody that thinks that there’s something inspiring about what we’ve managed to achieve this year.”