guerri: "We want the Global Challenge to be our warmup for the Minor"
Before the beginning of their match against Singularity yesterday, Collin "CarbonDogma" Davis had a chance to sit down with FURIA coach Nicholas "guerri" Nogueira. He talked about the team's expectations at the MDL Finals with him standing in for Rinaldo "ableJ" Moda Junior, their decision to attend DreamHack Open Rio, and their performance over the last six months.
I want to start off with your match against Singularity later today, how has your preparation been for this, especially considering you can't use ableJ?
We have been preparing by playing the tournaments we have played [recently], and discuss a lot about the game, and we need to play our game. We are trying to have a better reaction about this weekend.
As far as Pro League is concerned, you guys were invited but decided to play DreamHack Open Rio instead, has there been any regrets for that decision, or do you still think that was the right thing to do?
No, no regrets.
Going back a little, for the Minor qualifier you guys pretty easily made it, you only had to beat oNe. So, do you think the qualifier went according to plan?
Yeah, we are now a top ten team, so we need to be at the Minor and it's our goal to make the Major. The tournament was good for us, and there were no problems.
A bit after that you guys played at Moche XL Esports 2019 and you ended up losing to GamerLegion. What do you think went wrong in that game that resulted in the loss?
I don't know, we made a lot of mistakes and that's ok when we play a lot of tournaments. But the mistakes we made in this tournament are kind of kind of basic mistakes. The jetlag, the lot of the tournaments could be the [issue]. They're the first thing in my mind that [led] to that result. But we didn't enter the game with the right mindset. Our communication was bad and the combination of these things was a disaster for us.
Finally, in Cologne you guys in the first match lost to NRG which you've lost to them a few times now do you think you have a bad matchup against them or some sort of mental block perhaps?
No, we don't have a mental block or anything. I don't think that. They are a pretty good team; they are a top five team and we knew it would be a difficult team. I think they didn't make the same [mistakes] they made at DreamHack Dallas in our opening match when we won. And we don't have a lot of [results] to look at [with their new IGL], and they have a lot of [results] to see about us. It's difficult to know which map they will be playing cause they have a new captain, new IGL. So, I think they chose their map and know how to play against us. They have good preparation.
So, after the games against Renegades and Natus Vincere you guys ended up exiting the group stage, was this a disappointing result you think?
No, no disappointment. Like I said we are a new team we came in 2019 and we showed the world what we can do and that's ok we had a good run in DreamHack Dallas, at the ECS Finals, so in Cologne our expectations were to go into the playoffs. But we had the best teams in this tournament, and it was difficult to play against Na'Vi, it was our first time playing against Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev and Na'Vi. I think we had a bad start on both maps, and this is difficult when you play against these types of teams, they know how to balance things, how to read their opponent. But overall, I was proud of the guys cause we have a good mindset and almost came back in both maps and some little mistakes cost us the game. But, we are playing at a good level, the same level as the best teams like Na'Vi, ENCE, and Liquid, we lost to these teams but they're awesome teams so they play at a high level and a long time while we started out this year so that's ok. I'm not disappointed [at the result].
Looking forward to the rest of the MDL Global Challenge and then the Minor what are your goals for those two events?
Our first goal is to make EPL Season 10, that's the first goal. We want the Global Challenge to be our warmup for the Minor because we don't have time to prepare, so this will be our preparation. That's it, and when we go to the Minor, we want to secure a spot for the Major.
I think you guys are the reigning Minor champions, right?
No, NRG were the champions and we got second place.
So now you get to have revenge?
Yeah, ha-ha. Could be.
As a final question, it has been talked about a lot already, but obviously you guys re-signed contracts with FURIA so I'm assuming that means you're really committed to that lineup and you're going to work hard to make it work?
This team is the team I want to coach, that's all I can say. It's my team and I love them.
Following the interview, guerri and FURIA defeated Singularity in a close 2-0 victory to secure their spot in EPL. Today they are set to take on Australian team Chiefs in their opening matchup of the MDL Global Challenge.
