arT: "It's expected to have pressure when you are one of the biggest teams in Brazil"

The Brazilian IGL believes that FURIA will have far more confidence and momentum heading into the Major.

After an unfortunate start to 2024 for FURIA, who exited the IEM Katowice Play-in dead last and missed out on a number of top events thanks to early defeats in qualifiers, the Brazilian team set its sights on the all-important Americas RMR with hopes of turning its fortunes around.

The team will no doubt be pleased with their run in Monterrey, Mexico, as FURIA have completed a successful campaign at the Major qualifying event that sees them finish with an untarnished 3-0 record after notching wins over Nouns, Complexity and Liquid.

Following his team's hard-fought victory over Complexity in their qualification match, FURIA's in-game leader Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan spoke with HLTV regarding their RMR campaign, the internal and external pressures the team has been facing, and how leadership duties have been balanced between himself and Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo.

Through to the Major in close fashion. Just talk me through that match and getting it over the line in the end.

I'm still shaking. It was a very tough match, we were really feeling the pressure. We could have played Vertigo way better and finished there, so we went through the third map very... the mindset was shaky. I think we were stressed out because we knew how many mistakes we had made, but fortunately, the guys managed to get a clear head for the third map and we didn't make the same mistakes on Nuke.

When Vertigo was down to the wire, I saw guerri take a pause, say something to you, and then you called something that FalleN helped you with. I'm wondering what that dynamic is like; FalleN described it as working almost in tandem.

We have great minds on the team, and everyone's trying to get a read on the game and be helpful, and that depends on the round. Everyone's trying to help, and sometimes I call, sometimes FalleN takes leadership, sometimes guerri puts his idea on the pause. It depends on the game and the match. I think, specifically, we kind of knew what to do and what to expect, and we were prepared for what they did, but we could just not kill them (laughs).

Coming into the RMR, there were questions around FURIA's form with the way you guys got knocked out of Katowice and then went straight into losing out in some online qualifiers. How does it feel to come here and prove that wrong, managing to go through 3-0?

Yeah, I think that's great for us. I do think we had very tough matchups in this RMR, and I think that was good for us in the end, because not only did we win, but we managed to get some very good matches against very good teams. That's very helpful for confidence, and CS is all about confidence. We kind of felt a lot of pressure earlier in the year, we practiced for an entire month in January, and when you practice too much and you're going for your debut, it's always tough for us.

We felt a lot of pressure from outside sources, so we kind of had weird mindsets. It was tough for us, but everybody had great adaptations, and everyone worked on their mindset really well to get them closed, and we closed our mindsets between us and just 'fuck everybody else' and we just worked a lot and managed to fix our mistakes, play better, and have more confidence.

What kind of outside sources were you getting that pressure from?

When I say outside sources, it may just be our own minds. I think there's a lot of pressure on ourselves. We know that we need to perform because we want to win so badly. We feel like we have a very good roster, and the results were not showing the potential, and we felt a lot of pressure because of that.

Of course, the crowd and the fans put a lot of pressure, but it's expected to have this much pressure when you are one of the biggest teams in Brazil. We just need to have the right mindset. It's tough when you are losing or not doing what you're supposed to do and you think you're not playing that well. As I said, it's all about confidence, and when we get that, a lot of problems go away.

A lot of conversations during this low period called for guerri to be removed. Can you tell me about whether that affected the team, or what the internal conversation around that has been?

I do think that our group shut down from the media. If you hear too much it's prejudicial because you are working every day and you have a goal, and we know our mistakes and we practice a lot, and nobody sees the practice. So we are fixing a lot of mistakes every single day, and people outside don't really know the specifics of what we are doing. CS2 is also a new game, so there are a lot of things that we're still working on, like the pace and meta.

It's a lot of stuff happening, and if you get ideas from outside, from me, from FalleN, from guerri, from yuurih, it's seven minds on the server and the team and the outside minds. It's so much that you cannot be listening to everything. You need to focus on your team and what we think is right and wrong, and just manage to get to work.

For you specifically, you had that whole time as IGL on the original FURIA, then FalleN took it over, and now it's back in your hands. How has it been transitioning to CS2 and having to change the style up?

I don't think there is a lot to that. I do think that FalleN is a natural captain, I do think he's the captain, and he helps me a lot in-game, as well as outside the game. I can't even describe, he's a great leader. He adds a lot, but I do think that I can also help him focus on his gameplay. He's an AWPer and a fucking good one, and he needs to also focus on his aim and do his own plays.

When the game switched to CS2, he was trying to think about so much stuff, new maps that he hadn't played before a lot. CS2 has changed a lot of stuff, and he was overwhelmed. He has to perform with the AWP, he has to help the players, set the strats, so many things that we try to work on. We felt it was working in practice, in scrims and also in tournaments, so it's a structure that we are constantly evolving and trying to find the right balance for.

This result over Complexity and the 3-0 record with the win over Liquid are really big. We won't know who will be Legends until the RMR ends. How do you feel your chances of being the top-ranked team in the Americas to go through?

We heard about it being about points and not results, which is really weird and wrong. I don't think that the team that beats the Legends team should not be Legends. If we beat Complexity, we should be Legends, and if Complexity beat us and went 3-0, they should be Legends, and if that's not the case, we should have a matchup to decide.

I think the last RMR was like this, the 3-0 teams faced each other for the Legends spot. I think that's the most fair result. We and Imperial did not have the chance to play each other for the Legends spot. If it's the best out of points, I don't see that being a smart thing, I don't agree with it.

For you to now be qualified regardless, what does that mean to you, and how do you see FURIA's prospects going into that?

I do think, as I said, we have a lot more momentum and confidence going into it, and I think, looking ahead, it will be... not easier, but we're going to have way more stability. I think everybody has the right mindset, and the work we put in in the past few weeks and months has been really prosperous, so I do think we feel way better now.