FalleN: "I proposed a game too fast for my own taste"

FURIA's captain says his team had to experience the loss on stage to further their growth.

FURIA surprised at IEM Rio with a triumphant group stage campaign, romping past FaZe, MOUZ, and Natus Vincere to book a ticket directly to the semi-final in front of their home crowd.

Upon returning to action under the bright lights, however, they collapsed: A meager six rounds across two maps against MOUZ meant the Farmasi Arena was silent for much of the series and the Brazilian fans had little to celebrate, with FURIA looking a shadow of what they had just two days prior.

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The defeat is one that Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo is taking as a learning experience, he told HLTV after the match, saying that half the team — Marcelo "⁠chelo⁠" Cespedes, Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros, and Sid "⁠sidde⁠" Macedo — lacked big stage experience and that the defeat something "the team had to go through to see how important communication is, how important it is to hold our nerves better next time."

The Brazilian veteran also spoke about his own mistakes and erroneous approach to the game from a strategic point of view, discussed how FURIA's new coaching staff is helping integrate new strategies, and praised skullz while admitting that playing on stage was a new reality for the youngster and that it was a "big learning experience."

If you cannot see the SoundCloud embed above, you can listen to the interview here.

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Commiserations, a really hard loss. One-sided, unfortunately. Can you tell me about what was going wrong and the feeling of playing on stage with a defeat in this fashion?

The feeling before the match happened was awesome, there were so many people cheering for us. It felt like during the game we couldn't play our best version as we did in the group stage, mainly because... first, they were playing super well, they were really making it very hard for us.

Secondly, without watching the match yet, it feels like we felt the pressure a little bit playing on the stage. It was one of the first matches for half of the team including the coach, and even myself, with the experience I have, I still made some mistakes and maybe played a bit too fast at the very beginning and stuff like that.

The team is going step by step, and we would have loved to go three steps at once, go to the finals, win the title in front of the crowd, but reaching playoffs was a good goal for us here and getting to the semis was a good result. We will take it from there.

Tell me about reaching playoffs, because coming into this you weren't expected to take down NAVI, you weren't expected to go through in that fashion.

Our main goal was to get to the playoffs and play in front of the crowd, that was the main dream for us. It feels like we were able to control the nerves and play very good CS during those first days. We played convincingly, communication was on point, the team was really flowing. A very different version of the team that we showed here in this match against MOUZ.

You said that it was a little bit of stage inexperience for half the team. I was talking to sidde just before you came and he said similar things, that it was hard going on stage with some of this team being fresh to it, was that all that went wrong or what caused the collapse between the group stage and here?

Well, no... I think you have to bring things from the match to really give you a good answer, but I'll try giving that. We won the pistol round and started pretty well, we lost the first force-buy which made our life harder already.

We make our ecos, I think it's 3-1 at that point, we win the first gun round convincingly, we had a good idea on what to do. The second gun round we kinda go the same way, we do it pretty well, but we lost a 3v2. Jimphhat was in Heaven and he was able to get some kills, and it kind of gives you the feeling of, 'Oh, we had this one,' and stuff like that.

Then I think that's where I made a mistake, that is something I would call differently. I called something very similar a third time, my teammates said they had a good chance in this round, but for me it felt like because I was proposing a game that was that fast, maybe the nerves were a little bit high and we played too fast.

I would go back to that third weapon round and do something different, a little bit more slow-paced, try to put them in control. And then at that point, trying to go for something else, it was easy for them to read that we had to adjust so they had the upper hand already.

Strategically, that's what happened on the first game, and a little bit more emotionally in terms of how the team was flowing, we were a little bit too tunnel-visioned in some moments because of the pressure. The communication was not on point completely, and for us it is normally. That is the main focus for me, the main thing to work on.

Playing in front of this crowd was your main goal coming into the event, do you walk away with a bit of regret or disappointment in the way that you played?

My only regret is that weapon round, honestly, because I feel like the game can be different when you call differently. I proposed a game too fast for my own taste, and when it doesn't work, it just sucks. That's the only regret I have, about that weapon round, but that's mainly me thinking about it strategically as a captain.

I think the team had to go through what we went through, we had to see how important communication is, how important it is to hold our nerves better next time, and a lot of them are going to learn a bit from that. We're going to keep our heads up, and no, no regrets, it was amazing.

There was a big chance we couldn't even make it to the stage, the competition is so stacked. It wouldn't be shameful to lose in the group stage and say, 'Yeah, it didn't work this time,' but we were able to go through convincingly which is the best-case scenario.

We will go ahead and have that in our minds and work strong for the RMR now, make sure that we keep working hard and improving step by step. As I said before, it would be great to go three steps at once and win the title, but we're not there yet.

This iteration of the lineup with skullz hasn't been around that long-

Three months, yeah.

-Yeah. There was this long period where you were in this team, the leadership changed hands a bunch of times between you and arT. You're now fully in the driver's seat, you have some new coaching staff, and there is a lot that has changed around you. What has it been like for you with these changes and now trying to bring this lineup up to the top?

The people working around us are making our lives very easy. FURIA provides us a lot of good stuff in terms of the people who work with us, and also the structure. There's a lot of facilities that help us to only focus on our job, and that's amazing.

Secondly, the coaches, sidde, and all the analysts, they're helping us progress in areas that keep showing up. As long as we play a couple of matches, problems show up, things that need to be different, they are always on point with what to look at, how to behave differently next time. Slowly we're getting there because we're adjusting things ourselves, guided by what they think.

For you as a captain, how has the change been with the coaching staff bringing new things to the table?

Personally, working with more people is always challenging because everyone has different ideas, but they give me a lot of freedom to do and use whatever I want to use. It's very good that they give me this freedom.

Slava, his name is innersh1ne, he is very creative on many of the T sides. He's always looking for stuff the other teams are doing, always giving ideas and input for some players here and there, and sometimes those ideas become strategies. Sometimes we can play around it, and once we try it in practice, we feel it. Like on Dust2 we beat MOUZ in the first game, there was a strategy that was mainly created by an idea, a lurk B smoke that he showed to skullz, so these kind of things are very helpful.

Hunter, Lucid, he is more focused on working on our CT sides, like why we are not moving when we have to move and stuff like that, setups we should do more. He's more on the greater game as CT. Both of them help a lot, and sidde is making sure everything works smoothly and he is getting all those ideas from a tactical point of view, making sure that players adjust to it, and the daily routine is very good for us to achieve off that.

Lastly I just wanted to get your thoughts on skullz, how he has developed now that you have time to work with him and now that he's played a big stage game. A goal was probably to also get him in front of this crowd, right, so what was that like and how has it been working with him?

This tournament was very, very important for skullz. During the group stage he played amazing, he was in control of all of his emotions and had flowing communication, playing super well.

Playing on stage here was probably a new emotion and new reality for him in terms of how he has to behave next time. It's a big learning experience for him here. I'm very happy having him on the team, he brings a lot of calmness, a lot of precision to our game, and he's a great asset for the team.

Leaving this tournament, as you said it was a good result for you that you made the playoffs and that you got this far. What's feeling like going out of this and turning the focus to the RMRs and following events for the rest of the year?

Our focus will remain the same. Analyze what can be better, step by step. Looking ahead for the RMR, it's going to be tough competition, we gotta make sure we are at the Major, there's a lot of pressure as well. That's the life of the athlete, right? You go from one to the other, the next two weeks there's something new again and you keep going through all those things.

For us it's coming back, we're going to have a very small break now, a few days for people to [take] off and do something different, and then we'll go strong to the RMR. The end of the season is going to mainly be focused on China, so it's going to be big weeks coming ahead of us.