‘I do believe they will hold sturdy’: Why Dallas Fuel, ‘Yong’ aren’t backing down from lofty OWL goals - The Dallas Morning News

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The Dallas Fuel ending a weekend with a pair of losses is all but numbing to the team’s followers at this point. It’s evident, publicly on Twitter.

The Fuel lost two matches last weekend, swept by the Shanghai Dragons and Guangzhou Charge. None of Dallas’ coaches were pleased by the performances, but even assistant coach Kim “Yong” Yong-Jin felt that things will be different in 2021. He was around for the Fuel’s collapse last season, in which the team parted ways with its best player and two coaches with a month left in the regular season.

Yes, the Fuel did lose again over the weekend and have another tough match ahead against the Seoul Dynasty at 6 a.m. Saturday. But those were exhibition matches after less than a month of practice together, and the results aren’t the most meaningful thing to look at for the Fuel coaching staff right now.

“The outcome of the match (against Seoul) is really none of our concern because it really depends on how much synergy we are able to pull off,” Yong told The Dallas Morning News via interpreter. “We are spending this entire week to focus on the synergy for the team.”

Yong never thought this rebuild was going to be easy. The majority of the new cast, including seven new players and two coaches, may have played together with Element Mystic in Contenders, but that was two years ago.

Dallas has four players from the 2020 Paris Eternal team, two from the Houston Outlaws, one from Shanghai and just Kim “DoHa” Dongha as the lone returnee for Dallas. They know each other, have lived together and are friends, but this is still a new team.

“Houston and Paris were completely different teams with different styles,” Yong said. “Instead of hoping their synergy would develop just by sticking them together, I think treating this as an entirely new team with eight new players to discover a style that fits for this team is probably going to be the most helpful.”

The Fuel aren’t doing anything fancy to rebuild this team’s chemistry from the past. Healthy practice, video review and activities outside the game occur often. The 2020 Fuel struggled to get along and understand each other. That’s why that team had a 9-11 record, Yong said.

He doesn’t see that happening with this group.

“I do believe they will hold sturdy and be mentally prepared for this year,” Yong said. “Just thinking back to last year, I don’t think performance or skills were a problem. It was more the culture difference and language barrier that made it more difficult for everyone.”

Head coach Yun “RUSH’ Hee-Won, assistant coach Go “Aid” Jae-yoon and Yong all agreed this team’s basics needed to improve. Yong started preaching that to last year’s Fuel. In order for a team to reach its potential — and the Fuel have lofty goals of competing for an OWL championship — each individual must have a solid foundation.

Dallas is working on its foundation and has some time with the Overwatch League season beginning in April. While results may look like the same old Fuel right now, Yong is confident it won’t feel that way forever.

“Now we have a group of people that have experienced being and living with each other, who share a similar culture,” Yong said. “I do think it will be a lot easier when it comes to character mental and performing together.”

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‘I do believe they will hold sturdy’: Why Dallas Fuel, ‘Yong’ aren’t backing down from lofty OWL goals - The Dallas Morning News
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