I got a chance to hold the first extensive English interview with the coach of EG-TL, Sung Jin "trOt" Park. In this interview, he speaks to his start as a pro-gamer, his philosophy on coaching, working with the foreign players, Jaedong in the team house, the state of StarCraft II, and more.
Shiro: A lot has been talked about how motivation to practice harder is the biggest limiting factor to success. How do you motivate your players to work harder, or cheer them up after a loss?
Sung Jin: I always tell my players this: Don’t just look at the small tree in front of you. Look at the big forest. The players need to do well in Proleague to win honor and fan support, so the motivation is of course necessary. If a professional is having problems finding motivation, then would he not be an amateur instead? Shiro: What criteria do you use when determining the line-ups for Proleague (if you can say!)?
Sung Jin: I think this should be kept secret. One hint I can give you is that it is fair and everyone can get a chance.
Shiro: Most of the players on EG-TL have never played in Proleague before, or only played a few matches. Do you believe a lack of experience on the Proleague stage will hurt the team, or does the experience in other tournaments make up for it?
Sung Jin: Proleague is different from other events. Long time KeSPA teams have every aspect of their schedule set up to match the Proleague schedule. This means that Proleague is their Number 1 priority by far, but that is a little different for us. We also have many foreign events as well as streaming to think about, so we are at a small disadvantage in Proleague here. I think it is important to consider Proleague and other events as one thing in order to do well. I don’t think that our players are lacking in experience compared to KeSPA players to do well individually. The difference is practice method. We can be lacking in this area, but Round 2 and 5 are all-kill format, where our players have a lot of experience in. We consider those two rounds as our trump card.
Great interview, and am a huge fan of how Thorzain is like 6 inches taller than everyone else.
Not sure how the all-kill format is going to be their ace card though, as none of those players have been really streaky lately. Maybe hoping to bring Taeja back to his outrageous summer form.
I agree with the coach that the team is at a disadvantage in terms of focus. With so many other obligations, many of them not even in South Korea, I think they may end up losing several games this year because of that lack of focus. I think they'll still do well, but I'm worried how the shuffling of players as they travel will affect their consistency.
On December 21 2012 15:29 Fliparoni wrote: He says the only foreigner living in the EG house right now is Thorzain. I wonder where Huk lives.
I'm curious about that too. Maybe he's been spending time at the lair for foreign tournaments. It's always so hard to tell with most Koreans what they're really thinking due to the translation and how safe their answers usually are but his lack of modesty seems like a good sign, especially if he considers this to be one of his team's weaker rounds, which should improve as time goes on.
On December 21 2012 15:29 Fliparoni wrote: He says the only foreigner living in the EG house right now is Thorzain. I wonder where Huk lives.
I think Huk is on vacation at the moment, he left after like the day after the second proleague match. He may still not live in the house, but the coach may have just been listing only people there at the time. Someone else with more knowledge than me will have to chime in!
We can be lacking in this area, but Round 2 and 5 are all-kill format, where our players have a lot of experience in. We consider those two rounds as our trump card.
EPT
