After reaching the playoffs of IEM Cologne 2025, Jimi "Jimpphat" Salo sat down with Bo3.gg for an exclusive interview to reflect on MOUZ’s preparation, the bitter loss to Team Spirit, and the team's path forward. The 18-year-old rifler spoke candidly about how he spent his summer, the challenges of facing top-tier teams like Vitality, and what needs to change if MOUZ want to lift a trophy this season. He also opened up about his ambitions, the team’s mental state, and the desire to redeem themselves after falling short in key moments.

How did you spend your vacation? Did you manage to rest well?

Yeah, I managed to rest pretty well. I was in Japan with my friends, and I was just doing a lot of different stuff — definitely not playing that much at least. I tried to spend time with my family and friends mostly.

Did you play any games during your vacation?

Not too much. I played a little bit of League of Legends, but besides that, I don’t really play many games nowadays outside of CS.

In the first half of the year, you were consistently training and trailing Vitality but never managed to catch up. Why do you think that happened?

I mean, I think Vitality, as it is at the current moment, is a really, really strong team — no doubt about that. Tactically, they’re also playing really well. But I think the key thing is that they’re individually really sharp — all of them. They don’t have a weak player. So, when it comes to our matches against them, I think they were always really sharp, and most of the time, we weren’t. That’s something we need to improve this season — to be capable of facing them and being able to beat them. Of course, it will be tough, but that’s what we lacked last season.

How are you training right now? Are you using specific maps or tools to improve your aim?

I improve myself mostly with aimbot. Sometimes I play bhop and stuff like that — not so much for aim but just for fun. But yeah, mostly aimbots. I don’t play DM so often, and in terms of inputs and retakes — mostly those.

How long did your preparation for IEM Cologne take?

We had a one-week bootcamp prior to Cologne. So basically, from the start of the season, we went to bootcamp and then came straight here. That one week was our full preparation for Cologne.

What are your impressions after the group stage?

Pretty good. We managed to make it to the quarterfinals and had a chance to reach the semis, but we lost to Spirit — they were just better yesterday. But overall, I’m really happy to make it to the playoffs because the arena is really nice here. As a team, I think we’re in a decent spot right now. We still need to step it up a level or two to be able to win the trophy.

There are many strong teams left — even Vitality in our bracket for the semis. We need to beat FURIA first, which will be a tough match. I think they’ve been in good form. But overall, I’m pretty happy with how it went. Of course, we could have closed that Spirit game, but it didn’t go our way. It is what it is — and now we start from quarters.

You’ve mentioned the Spirit game a lot. In your opinion, what were the reasons behind the loss? What was missing? What conclusions did you draw from the match?

I think there are a couple of things. First of all, we have to give them a lot of praise for their individual sharpness. Donk and sh1ro— they’re incredibly sharp right now. It’s really hard to play against them, especially to beat them in duels. On Ancient, we were just really sloppy. We gave up a lot of entries in stupid ways. We didn’t play well at all, in my opinion.

There’s a lot to evaluate from that game, but on Ancient, we were just really sleepy. I’m not sure why that happened. On Mirage, we won — not much to say. And on Overpass, they just had better fundamentals. They played the map better. But that doesn’t mean I feel like they’ll be better again next time. We’re a really good team at learning from our mistakes. I’m really looking forward to playing them again — hopefully in the finals, if we get there. They’re a team with a lot of individual sharpness, which is really hard to beat if you’re not sharp yourself. That’s the biggest takeaway.

How are you going to prepare for the playoffs?

We play on Friday, which means we have Wednesday and Thursday to prepare. We’ll just do our usual. We don’t need to do more or less, but we will evaluate all the games we played — especially the one against Spirit. There’s a lot to take away and improve on. We’ll do our preparation for FURIA, play a little bit, and that’s about it.

Your quarterfinal opponent is FURIA, like you mentioned. How do you rate your chances of reaching the semis?

FURIA is our enemy. I mean, we haven’t played against them, but they’re not one of the best teams in the world — at least not currently. I would say it’s 80/20 — 80 for us. I think we have a good chance against them, but we still need to make sure we’re playing our game and doing all our stuff like we usually do. We definitely don’t underestimate them, that’s for sure. But we still need to look at it objectively — we’re the number two team in the world. So yeah, we’re pretty confident.

If you make it to the semifinals, Vitality will likely be waiting. Will you be ready for them? Any new anti-Vitality strats in store?

Yeah, I think it’ll be a matter of time when we get there. Vitality will be a strong matchup, of course. But as it is now, we’re not really thinking about that — we need to beat FURIA first. When we do get there, though, I think it’ll be our time to redeem ourselves and lift the trophy we’re all hungry for.

One last question: How do you deal with the tight tournament schedule? Are you able to recover properly? Do you think anything needs to change?

We’ll be on the road for about 40 days total since the beginning of the bootcamp. That’s a long time away from home. This season and the last one too, we were on the road a lot. It’s something you just need to talk about with the team.

I think we have really good team chemistry, so for us, we do well when we’re away from home and together. At the start of the season, we talked about it — everyone shared their view — so at least mentally, we’re ready for it. But of course, it’ll still be tough.