biguzera: "My feeling is I'm the team's father"

paiN's captain has his sights set on reaching the final in Belgrade.

After falling just short of qualifying for playoffs at IEM Cologne, paiN have returned to competition with haste, competing in BetBoom Dacha Season 2 in Belgrade, Serbia.

So far, the Brazilian side have found success in this outing, bagging wins over BetBoom and domestic rivals 9z to secure a place in the top eight of the event alongside names like MOUZ and Spirit.

Date	Matches
BetBoom Dacha Belgrade Season 2 Play-in
24/08/2024	paiN Finished 2:1 BetBoom	Match
25/08/2024	9z Finished 0:2 paiN	Match

Not long after his team's victory over 9z, paiN captain Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt shared his thoughts with HLTV regarding the matchup versus the South American side, paiN's aims for the event, and what the team is working to improve on in order to be able to contend with top teams.

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Congratulations on a 2-0 victory, but it was a pretty tough game.

Yeah, it always is against 9z. They play so well all the time, and against them we never know how it will be, we just know it's gonna be difficult.

You have played them a fair bit recently, obviously you played them in Cologne, does that make it harder?

Yeah, of course when we play a lot against someone we know about each other.

The tournament so far has been good, you have two wins. Are these the type of tournaments you look at and think paiN can go really deep, maybe make a final? Because there's a few top teams here, but not all the best teams in the world.

Yeah of course. I think this kind of tournament we have a big chance to go far, to go deep, maybe a final or win the tournament.

In general, paiN are on the verge of taking the next step and getting into that top echelon of teams. What do you think you need to do to get there, to take that next step to improve?

Maybe I could say the usual words, 'play more in Europe,' but I don't think it's just this. We need to improve and be more calm sometimes, play situations better on the server. Everyone is good and has insane aim, these kinds of things, but sometimes we make some mistakes that the top 10 teams usually don't make. So we have to improve little things, but a lot of little things. It's like a puzzle, lots of little pieces.

You have a team that doesn't necessarily have the most experience. What's it like for you leading a team with a couple of teenagers? For example there's snow who's barely played top CS.

My feeling is always like I'm the father of the team, the daddy, and these kind of things. I'm always saying in my opinion what is wrong and right, and they always listen to me, so it's good. I'm very happy to be in a team like that, maybe I'm good with that role, so I like it.

Throughout your career you've always been one of the best players on the teams you've played on. It's still the case now, for example in your last match you were the top player on the server, but it feels like you've got a lot of skill around you now. Does it feel like that, maybe there's a bit less pressure on you to frag every single game?

Yeah for sure. To be on a team where everyone can shine all the time is good, because the pressure for me is just IGLing, not in the fragging. So for me it's a good thing.