For the past weeks, G2’s Rocket League player Chicago has been sharing his perspective on the RLCS. In our weekly Player’s Diary he gives us an insight into the life of a professional Rocket League player.

For our final edition of the article series, Chicago speaks about the final week of League Play, finishing in second place and what his goals are for the World Championship.

We’re going to worlds! We defeat @Cloud9, take 2nd place and qualify for worlds! pic.twitter.com/6hVY7v4MhA — G2 Esports (@G2esports) May 4, 2019

“I don’t really know how to describe this feeling”

“We did it! We beat Cloud9 and are now qualified for the World Championship in New Jersey. It feels amazing. I don’t really know how to describe this feeling, because I’ve never had it before. It’s such a relief not having to play one single day to decide whether or not you’re going to the world’s biggest Rocket League tournament. Right now, I just feel so excited. Qualifying gave us such a motivation boost.

Last season was my first World Championship and it was already kinda cool, but New Jersey will be even more exciting. After seeing Sunless Khan’s tweet about the seating and seeing how many tickets have already been sold compared to last season, I just feel like a little kid full of excitement. Knowing that we have the G2 Army behind us makes it even better. Many will come out to meet us, and I just love meeting fans. Having all these supporters gives me a feeling that is just awesome.

A comparison of how many seats were available (blue dots) last RLCS in Vegas (first pic) compared to the upcoming NJ LAN (2nd pic), a little over a month before the event. HOLY SHIT! pic.twitter.com/fNCSJgNX1J — Sunless (@SunlessKhan) May 4, 2019

But let me tell you about last weekend’s match. Of course we ended up watching the Cloud9 vs. NRG series earlier that day. We weren’t scrimming at the time, so we had nothing better to do. But we didn’t do it from an analytical point of view. Our match versus Cloud9 wasn’t really comparable to NRG’s, so for us it was more of an entertainment match, not to find a last minute game plan versus Cloud9. There’s always the danger of overthinking it.

“It was a nice help from the Dignitas guys”

Unfortunately, our scrim schedule got a bit mixed up. We had plans to scrim against Spacestation Gaming, but Satthew had problems with his internet connection after their match and he needed to fix it. We couldn’t find anybody else, but then we saw that a couple of EU teams were on, so we messaged them and Dignitas were interested in scrimming. We were just looking for a warmup in order to get used to the fast play and be ready for the match. In general, it’s a lot of fun to scrim against EU teams, because we only play them 5% of the time, and in this instance it was a nice help from the Dignitas guys.

Close one but we did it, also thanks to @dignitas for scrimming us last minute when nobody else would. GGs @Cloud9 cya in Newark ? — G2 Rizzo (@Rizzo_TV) May 4, 2019

In our first two games versus Cloud9 we were executing our game plan perfectly, which felt really good. In game 3 and 4 we were still executing our game plan, but game 3 ended with a ridiculous own goal, which always sucks. Later that night, when we were in a call, we were all making jokes to JKnaps about it, so afterwards it’s just a funny moment. During the match you can’t think too much about it. You just have to focus and carry on.

Moments before disaster struck. JKnaps and I lowkey have the best goal line synergy pic.twitter.com/c3SjVB2Mz2 — G2 Chicago (@Chicago_RL) May 5, 2019

Game 4 was kind of a shooting battle between us and Cloud9. This was a high-scoring game, and they’re more used to these games where you outshoot the opponent, so they took this one as well. We were simply too slow there.

“We all had our freakouts and screams”

In the deciding game 5, we were as focused as we were all season. That is until the ball touched the ground. We didn’t want to receive a 0 second goal there, that would’ve been traumatic, but the moment the ball hit the ground and we knew what we just did we all had our freakouts and screams. All that 5 weeks of hard work and constant improvement led up to that moment. Winning that match was our reward.

Since I joined @G2esports, my team has had the best overall record over the past four seasons of RLCS NA and EU. No other team comes close to the 24-4 that my squad has achieved. You guys are amazing and I can’t wait to show what we’re made of at LAN. Also here are our comms: pic.twitter.com/gtYEk6ngcI — G2 Jahzo (@Jahzo) May 5, 2019

On Sunday, I basically just watched EU and chilled in training all day. I was curious to see who gets Top 2 in EU, because they’re all potential opponents at LAN. I’m really impressed by FC Barcelona even though their performance wasn’t completely unexpected. They are three world class players and especially Alpha in his rookie season is just insane right now. If they continue like this they’re definitely a team to watch out for during the World Championship.

“The main goal is always to win”

Going into any LAN, the main goal is always to win it, but for now it’s too early to establish a specific goal for us. We just want to get better, grind and become as good as possible by putting in the extra hours for training and video reviews.

First, we will have to play the Regional Championship this weekend. It’s still really important to perform well there, because of the seeding for Worlds. We will face either Spacestation Gaming or Cloud9. It will be an exciting match either way. Afterwards I might take one or two days off to recharge the batteries. As Worlds gets closer we also plan on bootcamping and scrim a couple of times more per day, so the schedule will only get more intense. We have to give it everything we’ve got!”

This concludes our Player’s Diary series with Chicago. We hope you liked it. Feel free to give us feedback on Discord!