Stat Check: FURIA know that the only cure for betrayal is success

20-year-old Kazakh AWPer molodoy will take time to adapt to his new surroundings, but inflated local buyouts mean it is the right time for FURIA to take the plunge.

FURIA's signing of Danil "⁠molodoy⁠" Golubenko was a shock; a rare move completely out of left field.

The 20-year-old has been one to watch since his days on DMS, the latest in a long line of talent to emerge out of the Russophone scene, but a move to the Brazilian giants initially feels like a simulation gone wrong.

Add Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis, who averages a 1.02 rating in CS2, and this move can be put in a long line of baffling moves from SK signing Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip to Paytyn "⁠junior⁠" Johnson joining FURIA.

But that first impression is based on two assumptions. One, that there is enough talent in Brazil that going international is the wrong move, and two, that talent is accessible to FURIA. You can argue the first assumption in most rifling roles, but the second is clearly no longer the case.

When FURIA signed Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo for big money in 2023, it was defensible. Brazil has always lacked star AWPers, and no prospect sniper had shown much against top opposition. At that time, having an AWPing captain made sense.

Fast-forward a few years and there are maturing talents like Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares and Santino "⁠try⁠" Rigal who would improve FURIA. But the team have waited too long; the duo are now playing in rivals and will have inflated buyouts. By signing molodoy this early in his career, FURIA are gambling in a way they were scared to in 2023.

Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt admitted that he wanted to play with Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato "one day" but talks have never looked likely. insani is another case, with VINI joking that it would be "easier to buy five EU players together" than to extract him from MIBR.

FURIA have played their own part in this too, locking their own star asset in the form of KSCERATO down to a long-term deal that has seen off interest from the likes of Liquid.

We can all build our Brazilian dream teams, with biguzera as captain, nqz as AWP, and insani as the star aggressor, but that is what it says on the tin: A dream. It is irrelevant whether the five best Brazilian players could win trophies because no one organisation will be able to house them at once.

We get plucky national underdogs like 3DMAX and flashbacks like Aurora and The MongolZ — teams who are able to monopolize their scenes — but in Brazil that hierarchy has collapsed. Talent is locked behind high buyouts and several teams believe they can be better than FURIA.

FURIA do not operate in cloud cuckoo land. Since results started tapering off, they have tried plenty of the Brazilian talent that was available to them. If you can't sign an insani or biguzera, going international is the only choice they have left.

So we can understand why they are leaving a Portuguese-speaking team behind. Let's now evaluate the moves on their own merits.

First, molodoy. The Kazakh sniper may have only played his first HLTV match 13 months ago, but he is off the scale for almost everything we measure.

He's in the top five per cent of AWPers in our sample for round swing, kills, damage, and multi-kills. He combines aggression (73 Opening, 0.13 openers per round) with ability in the clutch (89 Clutching 0.96 clutch points per 24 rounds).

When you compare his statistics to other AWPers, whilst knowing that it was against far weaker oppositon, he's in very good company indeed: far in the top-right with Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov and fellow starlet Dmytro "⁠jambo⁠" Semera.

Moving early has also helped FURIA beat the likes of G2 to his signature, going two months before the Major and the expected shuffle amongst the top dogs.

AWPers are a rare quantity in CS2, shown by the $600k rumored buyout for jambo by fnatic, and molodoy has the potential to be one of a select group at the top. The ability to learn from FalleN is also one any sniper, Brazilian or otherwise, would jump at and should help him improve quickly.

In that sense, his signing is a real coup for FURIA. But whether molodoy will be able to repeat this success is down to both his ability to switch culture and language and how his game changes against top opposition. He's only played 21 maps against top 50 teams in his entire career; even Roland "⁠ultimate⁠" Tomkowiak had 55 when Liquid signed him. It's not a slam dunk.

FURIA are aware of these challenges, and the YEKINDAR signing cannot be viewed in isolation. "Having someone who speaks the same language at the beginning will be important for molodoy to feel in a more relaxed environment," FalleN said.

YEKINDAR has experience in Russophone and Anglophone teams. He will be able to show both molodoy and the Brazilians what he learned in Liquid, the good and the bad.

The team also needed an aggressive piece after removing Marcelo "⁠chelo⁠" Cespedes. FURIA's structure has always operated with a super aggressive supportive piece, firstly Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan and then chelo.

YEKINDAR will allow trade-fragger Yuri "⁠yuurih⁠" Santos and lurker KSCERATO to continue as passive stars and for FalleN to be a supportive grenadier-style captain rather than pure bombsite entry.

Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros making way instead of yuurih is a move based, to our eyes at least, more on T side role fit than talent: skullz was happy to support but in an ideal world would be playing KSCERATO's positions. It is a more balanced, if not more talented, lineup with yuurih instead.

YEKINDAR opener, KSCERATO closer, and yuurih as a half-lurker and second-in trade fragger is the ideal balance. Comfort should not be an issue; the team shall not fail on a role basis, but a firepower one.

On offence, at least. CT Side is a bit more difficult to make work and FURIA may require YEKINDAR to take a very active voice as the main defensive caller because FalleN is likely to be sent to anchor positions.

We have seen how much Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller struggled with the AWP-to-anchor transition, not just individually but also because he could not call the active CT sides he was known for without the overview of the map you can only get from rotate positions.

YEKINDAR is going to have to fill that gap. This also means one of KSCERATO or yuurih will have to become an anchor, and we have plumped for KSCERATO to become a full-time star anchor-lurker in the vein of Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool and Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy. On paper, it works.

So if we see YEKINDAR as a comfort blanket for molodoy, a space creator for FURIA's passive fangs on T side, and a CT-side caller, you can see FURIA's logic.

It is also, remember, a short-term move; on loan from Liquid until the end of the Austin Major. FURIA are going to explore their options in the summer with a myriad of talented aggressive riflers across the pond.

The problem for the next three months until then is figuring out how FURIA will be able to survive in a firepower-heavy scene.

FalleN will be adapting to the rifle, molodoy to English, while YEKINDAR and yuurih have not been stars in a very long time.

Come summer, FURIA will want to keep their Brazilian core for obvious reasons but it is the underperforming yuurih and ageing FalleN whose futures are most in question.

"Very big discussions" will be had around FalleN this summer which adds yet another asterisk to FURIA's foray into an international roster — even if the 33-year-old has threatened to retire at any moment for years now.

If the YEKINDAR experiment is positive, he may stay on as in-game leader in the summer and leave FURIA in the market for a star aggressive rifler. They could also check on biguzera or VINI's contract situation and keep a Brazilian trio with international firepower available in their AWPer and entry-fragger.

God knows that the opener market has a lot of options, from the in-demand Maxim "⁠kyousuke⁠" Lukin (the only player harder to sign than insani) to prospects like Drin "⁠makazze⁠" Shaqiri, Vladislav "⁠xiELO⁠" Lysov, or Tomas "⁠tomaszin⁠" Corna. Why not a cheeky move for Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa if G2 continue to struggle, too.

If FURIA are to keep yuurih, KSCERATO and a veteran in-game leader they must prioritize youth and firepower in the final two spots. A rifling trio of KSCERATO, yuurih, and YEKINDAR will struggle regardless of how well the roles fit on paper, so the rest of the team must have an upward trajectory. molodoy certainly does, but one is not enough.

But if we accept that top-tier Brazilian talent is out-of-reach, looking abroad is the right move — as long as FURIA learn from the mistakes of Ninjas in Pyjamas and fnatic. No brand is too big to fail.

By going early for molodoy (and ensuring he has a natural ally in YEKINDAR), however, FURIA are showing more consideration than either of those brands did early in their own international journeys.

FURIA leaving Brazil behind is a sad day, but it is as much about Brazil leaving FURIA behind too: National scenes, if they want to compete with international superteams, require an efficient tunnel from feeder teams to one clear representative.

paiN and the various Brazilian squads have had great success but that has led to a scene with great depth — six South American teams will play in Austin — but no height. In the civil war between teams to be Brazil's best, nobody has the strength to be the world's best.

In KSCERATO, FURIA still have their region's best player; Vitality got a lot of criticism for leaving the French scene, but their fans didn't care when they won the Paris Major.

The only cure for betrayal is success, and FURIA have taken the plunge.

Date	Matches
PGL Astana 2025
10/05/2025	The MongolZ 10:20 FURIA	Match