fer on struggles ahead of the RMR: “I even asked the team if I could leave and stop playing CS”

The last qualification match of IEM Road to Rio 2022 Americas RMR had the whole Counter-Strike scene glued on their screens as Complexity and Imperial fought through two sets of nail-biting overtime on the final map to decide which team would qualify for the Major.

The Brazilians proved resilient and refused to fold against the North American pressure on Overpass, with Marcelo “⁠chelo⁠” Cespedes and Gabriel “⁠FalleN⁠” Toledo each creating several moments of magic across the 42 rounds played to secure a well-earned 2-1 victory.

The last map completed a fantastic comeback by Imperial who had found themselves with a 1-2 record at the RMR after failing to defeat 9z and 00NATION. With their backs against the wall, FalleN‘s men came out on top of four consecutive best-of-three matches, sealing their spot at the upcoming Rio Major.

Following the match, Fernando “⁠fer⁠” Alvarenga sat down with HLTV.org to talk about their journey in Stockholm, his personal struggles ahead of the tournament, and his excitement to play the Major in his home city.

Congratulations fer, you are going to your home Major in Brazil. It was a crazy match to end the event with an overtime finish on the third map, can you express any of the thoughts going through your head right now?

It’s not just about this qualifier, to be honest. We have been working since 2014 with the squad trying to play outside of Brazil and it was really hard even to have a tournament to play. We were getting good results outside and our dream was to have a Major in Brazil and it was really hard for us.

When they announced that the next Major was going to be in Brazil, it was so fucking nice for us and now that we qualified to play in it, it’s unbelievable. We started the tournament playing really well, and then we fucked up in the following two maps and we had our back against the wall so it was really tough for us. Everyone in our team has a strong mind and [thinks] that we can win every match, regardless if we get fucked in the first half, we can get back [in the game].

I am really happy right now, I have no other words to describe it, but I am really excited to go to Brazil and play the Major on our home soil. It’s even better because I am from Rio de Janeiro, so it’s going to be even more special for me. I just hope to go there and see a lot of fans, that support us from the beginning for what we have done, not only on the server but also outside of it. I am super excited.

So do you consider reaching this Major as the pinnacle of your career?

As I said, we started playing in Brazil and you could not go outside of the country to play Counter-Strike and you cannot live in Brazil with just CS money-wise, so everyone has to leave the country to live their dreams and for their jobs. Everything for us in Brazil was really difficult. Just for us to have the Major in Brazil is really special for us and now we are going to Brazil with not only us but with FURIA and 00NATION as well. This is very special for everyone and I think for us it’s more special because we did that from the beginning when we had nothing and we were just trying to do a lot for Brazil. So yeah, it’s going to be incredible to play on our home soil.

You are going to play in front of a crowd in your home city and it’s going to be there for every single game, I assume you are super excited about it?

It has not happened in any Major that we’ve had, and it’s because it’s Brazil. Brazil is different, and I cannot explain to you why it is, but everyone that plays the game knows the passion that the fans and the players have. They all know that Brazil is different and that’s why we are going to have the crowd from the very first game and you are going to see that it’s going to be really nice. It is going to be a big show for the fans and the players. Everyone will be super excited and they will talk about this [tournament] for ages.

Let’s talk about the RMR, you went 1-0 before dropping maps to 9z and 00NATION. You had to win a gauntlet of four best-of-three matches to get to the end, how did you remain focused throughout the last three days of competition?

We won the first match, and in the second map, we could have won too. I think we had a 14-7 lead and we did a terrible T side and that was really hard for us because in the practice sessions our T side was pretty strong and it was our CT side to be kind of shaky. Our mentality, even in the boot camp, it was to have a lot of serious talks about the game and start focusing and not joking a lot in the practice. We are friends and every team likes to joke a little bit during practice, but when you realize that you were going to play in the qualifiers for a Major in Brazil, it’s not a joke anymore.

We had to find a balance between playing seriously and playing effectively and productively during practice, but also to have fun as well. If you are putting pressure on your shoulders it’s even harder and when it comes to the tournament and you lose the second match when you could have gone to sleep with a 2-0, It was the opposite of what we wanted.

Imperial stared down the barrel of elimination with a 1-2 record on the third day

We played against 00NATION, against our long-time friends like coldzera and TACO, and it’s always special to play against them. They are really good players and people too so it’s always nice to play against them. They got the win, and we saw that we had to play four BO3s. It’s not what we wanted, but it is what it is, right? If we lose, fuck it, let’s just play the game.

We tried to have talks to not put too much pressure on ourselves, it’s not an obligation to be there [at the Major], and while of course, everyone wants to be there, if you just think that you are obligated to go to the tournament you automatically put pressure on yourself. We tried to leave out this pressure and play in our comfort zone. I think everyone could do that and I am really proud of my teammates, they played an amazing tournament.

We had the resilience to come back from disadvantages in some maps and I think we played like four overtimes in total across different matches and I think our team is pretty strong mentally. FalleN and I had more experience than the others, but the younger guys have the aim and hunger to play the game. That’s a really good balance for us to have, not only to play the game but to also have fun while playing and I think that’s special for us.

You mentioned the number of overtimes you played, do you think those helped the younger guys to get used to the pressure ahead of the final game?

Yeah for sure. Obviously, they are younger, so they feel the pressure more than us, but when the game goes into overtime I know that I have to be calm even when I am under a lot of pressure. I need to remain calm and try to hype them because if I show that I am under pressure, they will feel it too. I have to remain composed and say “It’s okay, we fucked up some rounds and that’s fine — let’s just focus, you guys are the best here and nobody wants it more than us. Let’s just play the game,” but they did amazing and I am really proud of them.

One of the younger guys that was not showing signs of cracking under pressure was chelo. He was out of control in the first half of Overpass, how did that look from your point of view?

I was so happy because he was just killing everyone and it made it easier for me to play the game. It’s really nice when you see a friend of yours just performing so well in such a hard tournament and I am pretty sure he’s really confident right now. It’s good for him, in the Bootcamp, we had a talk with our psychologist, and chelo told us that he wanted to play the game to shut up the people that were saying that he was not good enough for us.

I told him that he didn’t have to do that because his game would do that for him automatically. He’s a monster, that’s why chelo is here and we trust you, he should not feel like he has to play well to prove to anyone that he is, but he had it in his mind and our psychologist helped us and him a lot. I think he had trusted us to play our game and today he just showed everyone who is chelo, and he’s here now and going to Rio.

Another person on Overpass that was finding the frags whenever you needed them most was FalleN, his performances on the map are well known so tell me, what is it like to play with him?

I have played with FalleN on Overpass’ A bombsite since the beginning and I love to play with him. It’s really nice to play with a good AWPer on your site so you only need to gather information and play after him and help him, it’s really easy for me. Of course, I changed my game a little bit in those games [against Complexity] because I played super aggressive and they play passively looking to control the map, so if I aggress every time it could be bad for us. I tried to leave FalleN to get the first kills and just support him.

If you ever play with him one day, you’ll see that it’s very easy to play alongside him. Every single time he’s completing your play or just trying to guide you so it’s really nice to play with him, and I told him that today. It’s really nice to go to the Major, but without him, it would not be the same, I just love him.

I talked to FalleN at the start of the event right after your first win and he said that he would be at the Major whether you qualified or not, but now that you have confirmed your attendance as competitors, do you have any expectations?

We have no expectations, to be honest. We’ll just try to do our best and maybe that might be my last tournament, I don’t know, I am just excited to play with these guys one more time. In Rio de Janeiro it’s going to be even more special for me and everyone is helping me because I had some personal problems a few months ago and I even asked the team if I could leave and stop playing CS because it was really hard for me, but they helped me a lot. We changed our approach as a team, we did our last boot camps and we tried to spend more time in Brazil instead of abroad because I was having problems.

I could have not asked more, to be honest. I did not even ask, I just told them that I couldn’t play anymore and that I was done, but they did not accept that. It was not in a bad way, they just told me that they had a solution for that and that we could find something to fix it, like for example staying more in Brazil or maybe just having one week of boot camp and staying [home] for longer. They just helped me a lot and that gave me a lot more hunger to play with them so this Major is going to be really special for me. There are no expectations for it, just to have fun and do our best, and if it’s going to be my last tournament, it would be really nice to play it with these guys.

There was a lot keeping you in the game even during your moments of doubt, do you have any closing thoughts in regards to it?

I want to thank the fans because they have supported us since the beginning of our career. The cherry on the cake will be to play a Major in Brazil, the first one in the country. I think our fans deserve it, not just the players because every time you got to play CS, it doesn’t matter the country, they will be there and they will be loud as fuck. They deserve that, they are passionate, lovely, friendly, and excited so this Major is for the fans. For us players, it’s nice, for the fans it’s going to be even more special.