"If you come in second, you're just the first loser," Tiger Woods once said. Indeed, nobody remembers who finishes second and that goes for Counter Strike, too. There is no trophy, no shiny medal and the only consolation is a share of the prize money that forever reminds you of what you could have achieved.
But for G2 Esports at IEM Katowice on Friday, coming second ranks as the highlight of some of their players' careers -- and there is no shame in that whatsoever. Although they were bested by an outstanding Na'Vi side in the final, it is worth noting just how impressive G2's run at Katowice was.
Unlike the majority of the contending teams this year, G2 were not invited to participate -- they had to go through a qualifying event in order to get to Poland. From there, they had to battle a gruelling group stage of TYLOO, Mad Lions, Virtus.pro, 100 Thieves, Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid and mousesports.
Sure, they had a great showing at BLAST Premier just weeks before the tournament, but very few expected them to get out of their group, let alone make it all the way to the finals.
"We were definitely the underdogs or the dark horse," Nemamja "nexa" Isakovic said. "I think people underestimated us and they paid the price for doing that. They thought we were going to be the same team as we were last year, they thought what we did at BLAST was just a fluke.
"They still underestimated us going into this tournament and I'm glad we proved them all wrong."
Since the beginning of this year, G2 have lost just one of the 10 matches they have played in -- the lone defeat was against Na'Vi in the finals. Before that, they had only dropped five maps and in Katowice alone, they overcame four out of the top five teams in the world. The only reason it was not five out of five is because they never faced Astralis. Even the players themselves didn't quite expect the kind of results they managed to pull off.
"We expected to go pretty far in the tournament, but maybe not all the way to the final," Kenny "kennyS" Schrub said. "We were not aware how much our hard work can pay off but it seems like it paid off pretty well."
His teammate nexa added: "We knew we'd be good but we didn't' know we'd be this good."
G2's ranking is not the only reason for the lack of expectation surrounding the side. They are eighth in the world rankings, but the roster is still relatively new and it's been a long time since the organisation last lifted a Tier One trophy. Players like nexa and huNter have never even played in front of a sizeable crowd or on a stage that even comes close to the grandeur of Katowice's.
It's no secret that some of the players on this G2 roster have struggled in the past when it comes to Katowice -- nexa failed time and time again to qualify for the tournament while kennyS, the longest serving member of this squad, has played at Katowice three times but never put on a good showing.
Perhaps it was precisely that lack of experience that let them down in the finals. The roster only played their first match together on the Katowice stage just 24 hours before the final. They managed to beat Fnatic, but it wasn't as clean as the way Na'Vi overcame Astralis in their own semifinal.
It was made worse by the fact G2 were beaten on Dust II -- their most comfortable map, by both Fnatic and Na'Vi.
"People just have too much information on our Dust II and know exactly how we play," nexa said. "We can sometimes overthink it. Even if you try and change things up teams are always ready for it because they know how to play against us.
"Sometimes people actually counter us and sometimes they just play their own game but we assume they're countering and end up overthinking it and play into their hand. When you're on a Tier One level, there's a lot of mind games going on."
What Na'Vi did to G2 was more than just mind games; they orchestrated a comeback on Dust II from 7-2 down and went onto decimate them on Mirage to secure the trophy. The spotlight was on s1mple as confetti exploded on stage in the Spodek but it was far from a disaster for G2.
The roster needed the experience of playing on stage as a team and to earn some well-deserved confidence to know that they can beat the best teams in the world. For players like nexa, reaching the final of a competition like Katowice was long overdue.
"This is the highlight of my career," nexa said. "There's nothing else I can say, it's 100% the best moment in my career -- even though we didn't lift the trophy, it's still the highlight."
One of the most valuable things teams can have in Counter Strike is momentum. They might not have been the ones to lift the trophy in Katowice and people might not remember their impressive run in years to come, but with the Rio Major on the horizon, there are worse places to be than second place right now.