VINI: "If the only map they know how to play went to overtime like that, Mirage and Nuke [were] going to be easy"

Imperial have achieved one of the biggest feats of the Americas region at the majors, as the Brazilians conquered back the sixth slot that was lost during the 2022 IEM Rio Major. That feat comes after a 2-1 win over GamerLegion that was the talk of the town yesterday, not because of the incredible Imperial comeback from 0-1 down to the 2-1 victory, but because of a heated moment between Vinicius "VINI" Figueiredo and Henrique "HEN1" Teles.

In conversation with Dust2.us' Ryan Friend, VINI has cleared the air, revealing that it was nothing more than a stressful situation that only lasted a few moments. The Brazilian IGL also spoke about bouncing back from that discussion, the team's confidence going into the rest of the series and the opportunity to play in the Elimination Stage in Copenhagen.

Please note that the full interview can be found below on YouTube, while the transcript has some key snippets from their conversation.

How does it feel to reach the Top 16? This is such a huge achievement, especially for this team.

Everyone is really happy, just because we are going to have the opportunity to play more matches to prove ourselves even more. I think it's a big step for our team, we are getting a lot of confidence against the bigger teams and playing on LAN, not choking, stuff like that. A huge step, and even for our region, it's an extra slot for the RMR so it gets easier to qualify for the next major. Really good for the Brazilian scene.

Does that give you a sense of pride, that you were the ones that were able to get that slot back?

Definitely. The next team that qualifies [for the Shanghai Major] is because of us (laughs). We can have that in our back. I'm just really happy.

On Overpass you were ahead on that 5v3 and you lost. Then, there was that interaction between you and HEN1. What was being said? Did that really affect the mentality after?

Personally, it didn't affect me, but it affected him. He thought I wasn't listening to him, I mean, I kind of wasn't, I think (laughs). The thing is, on overtime, I was asking him to smoke Heaven and he was so tilted that he couldn't do it. I mean, it's HEN1, we go a long way [back]. These little things are not supposed to happen but it happens, it's fine. The team didn't break because of that, it was more about bad calling and we had no idea what to do. Going from a 9-3 lead to overtime is just really bad and everyone feels no confidence at all, and losing some easy rounds did [break the team].

After that map, I saw you guys having a team meeting. What was said there? Were you just trying to clear the air, get all back on the same page?

First of all, I told the guys like "Man, if the only map they know to play went to overtime like that, Mirage and Nuke are going to be easy." They win against everyone on that map, we knew it was going to be hard but first of all, I told the team that we can be better than [GamerLegion], we just needed to be relaxed, focused, and play how we do. It was not stressful, "let's do our default things we like to do and everything happened."