JiJieHao’s Aleksandar “CacaNito” Kjulukoski lamented how his team performed in their best-of-three matches at the Esports World Cup after pulling off an upset over Spirit in the opening round of the tournament.
The Asian side fell in two maps against GamerLegion and Aurora without putting up much of a fight, averaging just five rounds per map across the two series.
“I think we were kind of maybe overhyped from the best-of-one,” CacaNito told HLTV after the match. “We beat Spirit and we thought we were much better than what we showed now.
“I think we didn’t play the way we were supposed to play, and we didn’t show our game in the best-of-threes. I don’t know if it’s pressure or being tired from the long run or whatever, but I think we just failed.”
He added: “I’m just a bit disappointed that we didn’t fight until the end, and we didn’t show in these two best-of-threes that we can play well.”
Despite the disappointing showings in their last two matches, JiJieHao have positives to take from their Paris run, which began with a long, laborious run through the Last-Chance Qualifier. In a post-match interview, head coach Torbjørn “mithR” Nyborg said the team should be “proud” to have reached the main tournament.
“There were still a lot of good teams in the qualifier, and we managed to beat them and qualify for a tier-1 tournament,” CacaNito noted.
“That’s a huge step for us with this lineup and the team. I think we showed we can play good CS.”
We are just another step closer to the Major. We just need to keep grinding and play well in different tournaments
The work won’t stop for JiJieHao, who have moved up to 34th in the global VRS — their highest rank since May 2025. They are signed up for the open qualifiers for IEM Beijing and for the LEON.bet Masters, a tier-2 LAN in Portugal. Reaching a Major has become even harder for the team since Valve placed the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) sub-region under Europe, but that won’t stop the players from dreaming.
“We will take one or two days off to reset mentally and then we’ll go back [at it],” he said. “We need to grind and try to go back to more tier-1 events and show that we can do more stuff and maybe reach playoffs in other events.
“We made a huge step here, but we’re still top-35. But I think we can get to the Major. We improved in this tournament and we saw that we can play good CS. We are just another step closer to the Major. We just need to keep grinding and play well in different tournaments.”
