FalleN on anchoring: "I have ideas on what I should do, but when sh*t starts coming in, it's very different"

The Brazilian says he is satisfied with his individual level at the tournament.

FURIA announced a shock move for Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis and Danil "⁠molodoy⁠" Golubenko in April, and the new-look international squad qualified for the playoffs at the first time of asking.

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International lineup secures FURIA their first playoffs in 213 days

Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, who has moved to a rifler-anchor role, says the move was made to move FURIA more in line with the world's elite.

"I made this move because I felt that the teams who are winning the most have AWPers who are playing out of their minds," he told HLTV after his team bested ODDIK to earn a Barys Arena berth.

The Brazilian captain also spoke about molodoy, the buyout situation that is holding the Brazilian scene back, and his rifling debut at PGL Astana, during which he averaged a 1.08 rating in the group stage.

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I'm here with FalleN after his international FURIA secured playoffs here at PGL Astana. So this has to be a good result, right, considering the lack of practice for you guys?

Hello everyone. For us, it couldn't be better than that, we're going to the playoffs in the first tournament. We had only seven to ten days of real practice together, and you know, I'm very happy with the result, but our job is not done for sure. We want to test ourselves against even better teams in a high-pressure arena, and let's see how it goes.

I wanted to ask you about this change. For you personally, I think it's the biggest change due to transitioning from an AWPer to a rifler. Why was this the direction you took FURIA in?

This time, I made this move because I felt that the teams that are winning the most have AWPers who are playing out of their minds. They have ZywOo, m0NESY, sh1ro, all those guys are playing on a level with the AWP that in the last few years I have been unable to match, and not only because I was calling at the same time.

Maybe a little bit because of that, but I wouldn't say it's only because of that. I think those guys are playing on a different level, and I think if FURIA wants to be contending for titles in the future, we need an AWPer that can be somewhere close to those guys, because they [can] decide the match.

Secondly, you can only make two changes in a team at the same time, because otherwise, you lose most of your points. I could have stopped playing in June now, but I decided to try myself in a different role to see how I would play as an IGL only. I had an idea that I could play well and had good ideas on how to work with the team and how to call inside the game, but I couldn't know how well I would perform in terms of getting the kills. I'm pretty satisfied with the way it went on the first tournament, I felt like I could make some impact.

I wanted to ask about your individual form here, considering you put up quite a lot of kills. What is the hardest thing to adapt to for you as an anchor and a rifler as well?

I think the hardest part is playing some of the anchor sites. For example, B Mirage is the one that I struggled the most in this tournament so far. Normally, I have some ideas on what you should do there, but when shit starts coming in, it's just very different. You have to be used to it, I think I need more rounds under those situations to be really in control of what I need to do there. So yeah, I think the hardest part is solo anchoring, so all respect for the TACOs out there, all those guys, anchoring sites is a very difficult job.

Your new AWPer, molodoy, has been a bit hot and cold, which is to be expected considering all the context. How has he adapted to tier-one and English communication as well?

Communication in game is very easy most of the time, because the words we say in game are very basic, and he plays a lot of FACEIT games online, so he's kind of used to that environment. I would say that most of the time he doesn't really lose any communication, that's important. I feel like even though he's been a little bit hit and miss in some of the games, there are games where he decided a lot for us.

He is a very smart player in terms of connecting things without really needing too much in micro, which I think it's very important. He can see the big picture as he's playing the rounds, and I think that's something that you either have or you don't, so I'm very happy about it. I would consider him as someone who has to grow with time.

Of course, I have expectations, and I have hopes that he can be a star player for us in the future, and the faster it happens, the better for us, but a normal thing is to be developed. He needs more games in tier-one, he needs more games under pressure, and the team and staff are here to help him with everything we can, because we believe a lot of his potential.

To touch more on the international move in general. A lot has been said about really high Brazilian buyouts recently. Is that one of the reasons why you went international?

The last time we were able to put the Brazilian dream team that we wanted together was in 2017-18, when we were in SK and got the players from Games Academy, TACO and fnx. I felt like that's the last time we were able to put some very, very good players from each team together. After that, we had an opportunity to try and get KSCERATO and yuurih from FURIA at some point, and that never happened, so that was the first point where we couldn't really get the best Brazilian players together.

After that, I think there were a couple of other opportunities, but they didn't happen in most [instances] because the buyouts are really expensive. Some of the players that came up into the scene lately came from academy teams, and normally, academy players sign contracts that don't really do justice for their careers, in my opinion.

From one point of view, you're like, 'I'm getting an opportunity from this team and I'm gonna sign a huge contract and it's gonna be good for me,' and that's true, you can see it from that point of view. But on the other hand, sometimes the transfer fees are not really set, so I think the Brazilian players who are coming from academies and the Brazilian teams would benefit from having some standards on how high those prices can go.

Because once a player develops, he's kind of stuck on his own team, and sometimes, let's just say that the other players are just not on the same level as this guy. Then Brazilian teams can never really get the best players [together] at once.

So yeah, one of the reasons we went international is because you have many more options. YEKINDAR, for example, he wasn't playing anything, and he's very ready for tier-one, he's a super good player, and he was just out there. [In terms of] European players, English speakers, you have many more opportunities and players to choose from.

Do you feel this is holding back the Brazilian scene right now? Because the country has a lot of good teams, but there's no tier-one trophy contender.

Yeah, right now, we're missing the key factor. For me personally, I have been one of the best AWPers in Brazil in the last few years, and I have not been playing as great as the best AWPers in the world. That's just a fact, I'm completely fine with saying that. We're really missing a star player in terms of AWPing, and also the fact that we cannot combine the best Brazilian players. Then you never know how far it could have gone, but I think the main factor is AWPer.