FalleN: "We have to play more calm; a lot of things have to get better"

FalleN touched on FURIA's issues in a labored run at the Major so far, which required two comebacks for the Brazilians to reach the 2-1 pool.

As day two of the Shanghai Major concludes, FURIA are one victory away from reaching the top-16 stage. The Brazilians had a rough start to the tournament, losing to GamerLegion 13-7, but have been able to bounce back with hard-fought wins over Imperial and Wildcard.

Speaking to HLTV, Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo admitted that those two games were too close for comfort. But as the team will finally get to play BO3 series, everything changes. "It wasn't our best CS, but I'm very glad we got the job done," he said. "I think we have to play a little bit more calm, collectively, and keep improving."

Date	Matches
Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 Opening Stage
02/12/2024	BIG 04:00 FURIA	Match

FURIA will take on BIG on Monday in an advancement match in the 2-1 pool. The last time the two teams faced each other was at YaLLa Compass 2024, where the Germans ran out 13-3 winners in a group stage game.

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

---

You don't like to make it easy for yourself, the second comeback in a row, a pretty big one against Imperial and now again it looked like it was going to go away from you against Wildcard. Tell me about this one, what happened?

Yeah, it was a very tough match. I think we had a chance to start building a good CT side early in the half, but we lost two economic rounds where they had lesser economy than us - we actually won one, as well, so it was actually an eco round fight in the beginning.

And then I think they played a good half, we ended up 6-6, and then on the T half they started playing well from the beginning. We got the first gunround very convincingly and they started to build by winning a couple of rounds, and from 12-7 or 12-8 we started to win situations that we were losing beforehand, 2v2s, 2v1s, stuff like that. It was a very difficult match, they've been playing well, and it was very close to losing.

What happened in the 1v4?

It didn't really feel like a 1v4, it was a very weird round where everyone was fighting in Middle, literally five guys there, they kept coming and fighting, fighting, fighting. As soon as we got the initital two kills with skullz, I called for us to just try to pick up the guns and then play the rounds slow, but the fights kept coming.

At some point we started to run away, I had no kevlar, and I think yuurih tried to fight him, it became a 2v1, and then I think KSCERATO almost killed him, and I had only a Glock, no kevlar and it didn't go our way. Yeah, stuff like that can happen.

It's been quite a labored run from you at the Major so far and it was in the RMR as well. How has that matched up with your expectations going into this Major cycle? It feels tougher than we would have expected.

I think that just CS2 right now is very, very stacked. There are like five teams that can play on a bigger level than the others, but I think pretty much all the other teams can beat each other, and they can actually beat the other five as well. For this Major, I don't think we have been able to play very convincingly yet. Even our both wins we had here, it wasn't our best CS, but I'm very glad we got the job done.

As you say, it's been very close games, even against some of the underdogs. Going into the 2-1 pool, what is the talk going to be like behind the scenes for you to be able to qualify for the next stage?

Now it's all BO3s, it changes a little bit. It's a completely different scenario for all teams involved. We're looking forward to playing the BO3s. I think we have to play a little bit more calm, collectively, and keep improving. There are a lot of things in our game that have to get better. Luckily, even with all these struggles, we've been able to get these two wins.