guerri: "We want to do another step and go to the finals"

The FURIA head coach expects the game against ENCE to be exciting.

FURIA has been on quite the hot streak in 2022 following the addition of AWPer Rafael "⁠saffee⁠" Costa. After making an impressive run to top four at ESL Pro League Season 15 with victories over Vitality, ENCE, and Astralis, the Brazilian powerhouse came into the Major hot.

Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan's men were able to return to the Major playoffs for the second time in a row, defeating G2 in a close 2-2 match at the end of the Legends Stage. Now here in Dallas, FURIA quickly dispatched Imperial and Cloud9 to secure a spot in the playoffs.

While they were not able to beat BIG and move directly to the semifinals, the squad was not discouraged, and managed to secure a repeat victory over G2 to make the top four.

We caught Nicholas "⁠guerri⁠" Nogueira after their win in the quarterfinals, and spoke to him about the match and his feelings about returning to the stage in Texas, after making the semi-finals at DreamHack Masters Dallas in 2019.

First off, back in 2019 played on this stage, and surprised a lot of people by making the semifinals. What's it like to be able to return to this stage and make the semis again?

Yeah I was talking with the boys before the quarterfinal about how the first time we were up here for the org was here. We played in 2019 and we won against Vitality and then lost the semi-final against Liquid. So right now we want to do another step and go to the finals.

This match was obviously a rematch from the Major, so were you guys extra motivated to beat G2 again?

Yeah for sure. We knew they really wanted revenge. NiKo said it on HLTV and on other times so I'm sure they really wanted to beat us. They are really a strong team and they have really good individuals so to win another one like this. Vertigo — it was almost a loss, we came back from like 14-8 so it's really good for us to go to the semi-finals.

Speaking of the Vertigo game, how did you manage to help keep the team mentally in the match to be able to make that comeback?

Just talking to them that they need to be focused, because we are in the game, we are not getting wrecked, you know. We are trying — we lost some rounds because of us, not much because of them. So we are aware that they just need to keep going.

I noticed that the veto this time was a little different from the Major, because G2 banned Ancient this time. Do you think that had an impact on the outcome of the third map?

I think personally they made a mistake letting through Ancient at the Major. Right now they tried to fix that, because they are really good at playing Mirage. So I'm happy to win Mirage against them.

Now that you guys have got top 4 at EPL, playoffs at the Major, and top 4 here, is it finally time for FURIA to return to the top 5?

Yeah, we are trying to do that so hard. We are trying to get more playoff spots, like quarterfinals, semifinals, finals. We need to always be on this level to try to reach the trophy, that's our goal.

Looking forward to the semi against ENCE, what's the plan for that match tomorrow?

It will be a crazy match. It always has been when we play against them. They are a really aggressive team like us so we're really confident that we can beat them.