SK Gaming may be the most difficult team in the world to play in for a Counter-Strike player. The first place is always the plan, a second place is forgivable and anything worse than third will be considered a total failure.

Granted, in Fnatic or Meet Your Makers a second place is as hated as in SK and expectations are elevated to similar heights. But those players have set their own standards to live up to. Filip 'NEO' Kubski is expected to be NEO and Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg is expected to be f0rest. They are asked to carry their own weight.

It is different for Dennis 'walle' Wallenberg, Jimmy 'allen' Allen, Robert 'RobbaN' Dahlström, Kristoffer 'Tentpole' Nordlund and Marcus 'zet' Sundström. And for every SK player before and after them. From day one, every new player in the team has to sit in the shadow of the invincible SK Gaming of 2003. It is one thing to face high expectations and another to be playing in a team where living up to your predecessors is impossible.

That is a difficult environment to play in, especially when something goes wrong. Of course it would be a bit pomous and pretentious to put an 81-week trophy drought down to the success of Emil "HeatoN" Christensen and Ola "elemeNt" Moum's lineup, but there is something to it.

Good enough to win, never the winners

Given enough time, a team with players like Walle or SpawN has to win something sooner or later. Even if not the best, a good team with enough chances will get first or at least second place sooner or later. The game of CS is random enough and there are no undefeated teams.

Counter-Strike players were a choir all year when it came to naming the favourites to win. "SK was by far the best team we played in practice" was the chorus they sang before every tournament. "If it wasn't for this one round, we would have lost the match and SK would have probably won the event" was the second most popular song of 2008.

But, for ten long months, as much as a second place was allen's wet dream. The scenario was as repetitive as a James Bond movie. SK would rip through everyone in the early rounds and then you could bet all your money against them. Not because they got beaten but because they screwed up.

Strong yet powerless

SK were up 11-4 on Fnatic in Paris and still managed to lose the game. In San Jose, SK were up 12-3 on Mousesports and gave it away.

A comparison between Fnatic and SK tells an interesting tale. In Extreme Masters II, the Kode5 Global Final, ESWC Masters of Paris and the ESWC Grand Final, Fnatic lost six matches and tied two before getting to the playoffs. At those tournaments they finished 7th, 2nd, 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

In the same competitions, SK Gaming lost only three matches before the playoffs but, except for their fourth place at EM II, they always finished below Fnatic. Nothing was wrong with their hands but their minds were paralysed and unable to win.

Add a little rust and... it works

Enter zet. Rusty and a little bit out of shape, needing to adjust, catch up and do a lot of homework after his sabbatical from "the proper version of CS." In the matches he played he did not have super human stats, let alone remarkable ones.

But that was not what SK needed. A man with the craziest aim in the world would not have fixed SK's problems.

It was his character that touched the team and gave them a newly-found enthusiasm. His cheek, his machismo, his composure and his laid-back yet focused attitude that zet brought with him. A joke when they needed it, a yell when they were slacking. Firepower they already had plenty.

The change was noticeable. With zet on the team SK played four matches that had to go into overtime against Lag Blank, Fnatic, GamePlay and Made in Brazil, with a total of ten overtimes added to them. They were behind a few times but they won every one of those matches. They won an international trophy. The previous one was 20 months old.

Once sheep, they became wolves.

We do not know where SK Gaming will go from here. We don't know if they will win the next event. But we do know that winning is not a matter of dexterous hands.

It sitz in the head.

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Check out SK Gaming's record this year here and be sure to leave zet a nice guestbook message.