Nikola “NiKo” Kovač believes Falcons have struggled to properly use the confidence gained from winning the Major. Speaking to HLTV after the 0:2 semi-final loss to Spirit at BLAST Open Porto 2026, NiKo described the tournament as inconsistent and said the confidence from the Major may have hurt the roster more than it helped.
Falcons improved on their previous results by reaching the semi-finals in Porto, including a convincing 2:0 victory over G2, but were unable to challenge Spirit for a place in the Grand Final.
Falcons were too inconsistent in Porto
NiKo admitted there were positives to take from the run, particularly the performance against G2 and the mentality Falcons showed against Spirit. At the same time, he was frustrated by how dramatically the level changed from one match to another.
There are some positives, but a lot of negatives. The whole event has been really up and down for us, one game would be good and then one game would be shit, back and forth all the time.
The biggest concern for NiKo was the map pool. Falcons repeatedly struggled on their own picks, making every Bo3 more difficult.
The negatives obviously are that the map pool has been awful for us this event, losing our map picks constantly. It’s very hard to win series when you lose, I think we lost every map pick that we had at this event, so it’s hard.
Dust2 is the only reliable map for Falcons
NiKo said Dust2 currently feels like the only map Falcons can consistently trust. Even that creates problems against opponents who are also strong on it, while the level shown in practice has made choosing between maps such as Ancient, Nuke and Anubis difficult.
Dust2 is the only reliable map for us right now, but we know that Spirit are also, for example, very good on it. Sometimes we don’t get a chance to pick it.
He suggested Falcons may need to put less weight on practice results when deciding which maps to play in official matches.
Maybe we should just pay attention a bit less to what’s happening in practice, and focus on how we approach the maps in important games.
NiKo also acknowledged that constantly losing their own map picks has started to affect the roster mentally, even if he would not describe it as tension inside the team.
Major confidence may have hurt Falcons
When asked about the tendency of Finn “karrigan” Andersen teams to perform better in major playoff matches than in group stages or smaller events, NiKo rejected the idea that the issue should be placed on the IGL.
Instead, he believes Falcons as a whole have failed to carry their Major-winning form into the new season.
It just feels like we are underperforming as a team and overall. I don’t think it’s just him, me… just as a team it feels like we are just not there, you know?
NiKo then pointed directly to the confidence Falcons had after the Major.
I feel like we are not carrying well the confidence we had from the Major. I think it rather hurt us more than we actually benefitted from the confidence.
Falcons followed their Major title with an early exit from BLAST Bounty and a top-eight finish at Esports World Cup before improving to a semi-final appearance in Porto.
NiKo does not blame karrigan
NiKo stressed that Falcons are dealing with the problems together and do not view karrigan as the main reason for the inconsistency.
When it comes to that kind of logic behind karrigan, I don’t believe in it. We are in it together for this, we just need to look for improvements.
For NiKo, the fact Falcons can perform in playoff environments means they should also be capable of producing the same level earlier in tournaments.
If we can perform in the playoffs, we have to perform in the group stage. So we have to look for what’s causing those issues in the groups and try to do better.
Falcons now have a break from competition before their next tournament, giving the roster time to work on the map pool and the consistency NiKo identified as their biggest issues.
