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Jimmy Allen: "Not winning Kode5 will disappoint"
Written by Carmac in interview 5 months ago (40 comments) | Tagged in: allen Kode5 SK interview
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Jimmy "allen" Allen's timidity can be striking. He runs for his life at the sight of an interviewer with a video camera. But those appearances could not be more misleading - allen has enough confidence for two Counter-Strike teams put together.

"Anything except a win in Moscow would be a disappointment," says SK Gaming's star just a couple of days away from the Kode5 Global Final in Moscow. His team bootcamped for over a week practicing new tactics and keeping their individual skills sharp.

The man from the modest town of Degerfors, Sweden, has immodest ambitions for Russia. The final is the absolute minimum.

"I don't like thinking someone can stop us but MiBR and MYM are definitely a threat."
"I don't like thinking someone can stop us," boldly says the nineteen-year-old, "but I know that MiBR and MYM have been playing really much so they're definitely a threat."

Surprisingly, allen does not even name Fnatic, ranked number one in the world, among the teams he fears. Asked whether him failing to mention Fnatic was a part of their inter-Swedish rivalry, he gives another cocky answer: "Haha, nah, but I feel pretty confident that we will beat 'em. That's why."

But SK Gaming's most recent performance leaves a sizable question mark about whether or not they should be worried about other teams. Allen and Co. bombed out of the event losing to eSTRO and Mousesports.

"We were all really disappointed and angry after Extreme Masters because we lost such silly rounds. And when you lose them, you often lose the match, which was the case at Extreme Masters," explains allen. "But that's life, now we re really hungry to do a great tournament!"

Moscow will be a great opportunity to take revenge on Mousesports, but the SK youngster is more focused on the end goal.

"We're going to Moscow to win first, but getting revenge against a team you've lost to is always sweet."
"We're going to Moscow to win first, but getting revenge against a team you've lost to is always sweet," he explains. "The new Mousesports lineup is really good and that's why they won EM, so it wasn't a fluke, but we should have won that match against them. And I can't see us losing to them again."

Jimmy Allen is not afraid of any opposing team. In fact, his team mates Dennis "walle" Wallenberg and Kristoffer "Tentpole" Nordlund are more frightening to him. The team captain walle is known for disintegrating keyboards when things go wrong.

"I get little bit scared," he admits when talking about walle's temper fits, "but I'm more afraid of Tentpole when he gets angry. Watch out for flying keyboards and mice! I know [he doesn't look like the type]..... But when he's in Counter-Strike he becomes a rageful person. Not too often, though."
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But despite occasional explosive moments, allen says that SK's players have a lot of fun together and get along great. It seems like Jimmy has his share of producing the team chemistry, as Robert "RobbaN" Dahlström describes him as the most unserious guy he knows.

For that, RobbaN brings down a fair amount of friendly abuse on allen. It is the older player's harassment that made allen stop shaving his legs.

"I just didn't want such hairy legs," he defends himself. "I'm a really hairy person. RobbaN gave me a nickname: 'lurvas.' It translates into 'hairy motherfucker.'"

Keep in mind, then: if you see something hairy on the Kode5 podium in Moscow, it is going to be allen, not a polar bear.

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More pre-KODE5 interviews:
* Egor "MARKEL_OFF" Markelov (CS player, Hell Raisers)
* Jonas "whiMp" Svendsen (CS player, mTw.dk)
* Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen (CS player, Team Roccat)



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