biguzera: "You know when you have a piano on your back, and you take off this piano? It's my feeling"

paiN became the third Brazilian squad to qualify for the Major.

Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt became paiN's franchise player in recent years and has now qualified for his third Major under the organization.

He did so with a completely revamped squad, as he was the only member standing from paiN's Paris Major roster as all his ex-teammates left the squad in search of greener pastures.

After he and his team beat ODDIK to make the Copenhagen Major, biguzera talked about his feelings after qualifying, paiN's rebuild, and their expectations for the Major.

If you do not see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the full interview here.

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Congratulations, you've gone through 3-1. A big win after yesterday, things get scary at this RMR after you get that first loss. How are you feeling after qualifying for the Major?

I can't describe this feeling, it's so satisfying. It's so great for me with these four young kids to be there.

I remember being here a year ago with you and talking to you when you qualified, and it was a completely different lineup. You've gone through such a big change over the last year, talk to me about that change and switching this lineup to so many young players.

We thought it was important to change because we were on different pages. We gambled on new, young guys, we thought about it more like that. We put new guys and let's try to give knowledge to them and these kinds of things, but nothing special.

Some of the changes you were forced into, you obviously lost skullz to Liquid and he was a big rifler for for you. Tell me about losing him and then replacing him, barely three months ago.

skullz had incredible aim, so it was difficult to replace him in that kind of thing because he is special in this way, and winning clutches, he's so good. But in other things, he should improve something for the team, and he wasn't. So it was good in a point because of that, but it's a big loss.

As I said, last year it was a completely different lineup. When you went into the summer break last year, there was a point where paiN was trying to get FalleN and that fell through. Can you tell me about that?

Trying to get FalleN was a kind of thing to... he's such a good leader, and we were giving a chance for there to be one more leader in the team with three young guys. We were mixing the team with young and old guys, but it didn't work. I'm happy that it didn't work as well, because we are in the Copenhagen Major, but I'm sad because playing with FalleN is a dream for everyone in the scene.

You built this lineup, you have a lot of young players in this team. kauez was really touted as an upcomer, FURIA even tried to only give him to you on loan before you fully signed him, what has it been like working with him and the kind of talent he brings to this team?

He's a very good player, he just needed some confidence to play and someone to tell him, 'Go, go there and do what works for you,' and he did. He was playing so confident, I couldn't calm him down. I was saying all the time, 'Calm, calm down kauez, calm down,' and he was like, 'No no no, I have to go kill them.' (laughs) I have no words to describe him, he's unique.

This run to the Major is big for you, managing to make it back with a different lineup. When you look toward Copenhagen now, how are you feeling about the team's prospects?

I think we just have to practice a lot this time and do everything we can to be at the top. We have to do everything in more or less these two weeks, to work a lot and improve what we have to improve, and change what we have to change.

In the lead-up to this RMR, there was a lot of talk about teams practicing in Europe, some in North America, some in South America. What was the practice like for you and what has practice in South America been like?

The practice is not that good in my opinion. We were in Europe, in Portugal, and we were just bootcamping and learning a lot of things, the more things we could do to improve, we did. I think South America has a lot of good things, a lot of good practice. In my opinion, it's better than NA, but we have to improve more. It's not like Europe, it's not enough to be there.

Going into the Major now, are you going to be bootcamping in Europe as well then?

No because now we only have ten days, and we have one or two tournaments in Brazil that we cannot cancel.

For you as a leader, being able to bring another team up, how does that feel?

I can't describe this feeling. You know when you have a piano on your back, and you take off this piano? It's my feeling. It's so satisfying because we work a lot for six months to be there, and now we are there.