arT: "I spent a year and a half without seeing my mother, and nine months without seeing my girlfriend"

After a day filled with news and conversations about FURIA's decision to bench Andrei "arT" Piovezan and promote Nicholas "guerri" Nogueira to Head of Esports, there were a number of those in FURIA's world that wanted to speak their piece. arT took to his own personal stream while André Akkari, the organization's owner, joined Gaules' stream to speak about the change of direction.

While Akkari mainly focused on commenting on the organizational aspect of the CS team, mentioning that FURIA is looking to add a foreign coach to the lineup, with the alternative of promoting Sidnei "sidde" Macedo to head coach if the market options are not good enough for FURIA, arT took his time to talk about some of his past moments with the organization and some recent situations.

arT's responses were transcribed by Dust2.us' Gonçalo "GoncOak" Carvalho, who is fluent in both Portuguese and English.

The former FURIA IGL reminisced about his time in North America alongside Henrique "HEN1" Teles and Vinicius "VINI" Figueiredo, expressing his sadness due to not having had opportunities to make bigger things with that lineup thanks to the pandemic that saw them being stuck in Miami and resulted in the complete end of LAN event during an extended period of time.

HEN1 entered FURIA, and he filled the role that we needed—being that guy who could win us the round, an impact AWP. I could focus more on my role of deciding what would be best for the team, and together with VINI, we did a good job dominating the space. VINI was my trailer in a lot of situations, and when he couldn't, he would be my entry.

HEN1's addition came with COVID-19, and that affected our potential. We were stuck in NA, we only practiced in NA, the events were all regional, and we would play the same teams over and over again.

We lost that moment. I think if we had lived in a normal scenario during that time, I think I wouldn't be here today. A lot of things could have happened, I think for the best but it would be different, for sure. I think that lineup was FURIA's peak potential because we matched up very well against the other teams.

arT continued arguing that FURIA's potential with that lineup could have been filled if it wasn't for the pandemic. Then, HEN1 parted ways with FURIA and was replaced by Paytyn "junior" Johnson and the team would go through tough times. arT had much to say regarding HEN1's departure, revealing new information from that situation.

When we were stuck in Miami, FURIA was very focused on improving our performance. "Guys, you can't drink alcohol, you can't party, you can't go out Friday if you have to do something Sunday." This is what guerri and Akkari would tell us. "Look, you have a game on Monday. Today is Friday, and you can't have a beer, you can't go out, and you have to be focused." This is the ideology they tried to implement in FURIA.

During that time, they even kind of forced us to go vegan. KSCERATO was caught for a year and a half, and I was only for a month. All this trying to find that 1% betterment of performance.

That weighed a lot on HEN1's head. You know HEN1 more than anyone else. guerri and Akkari would always tell him he couldn't do anything, and he felt a bit imprisoned. There were discussions about cutting him from the team because of that. That is something that wasn't talked about publicly at the time, which made it seem that HEN1 left by his own desire.

That caused some troubles at the time because LUCAS1's team was going through a good moment, and there was an event they were together and got closer and I think HEN1 had some desire to play with his brother but the bigger factor, I believe and he can tell you, came from the pressure of feeling imprisoned. And he would make mistakes sometimes, but he was cut from the lineup because of those personal problems, not due to performance.

Later, arT discussed some other issues that affected FURIA. The IGL revealed that guerri wanted to cut him from the team because players would be prohibited from flying their girlfriends to events especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

...that happens on every team. FalleN's and kng's teams they argue a lot. Nothing more than that happened, I almost fought with guerri. guerri wanted to cut me from the team once, yes. It happened sometimes.

He wanted me out because we were prohibited from taking our girlfriends to events. I spent a year and a half without seeing my mother, and nine months without seeing my girlfriend. I spent almost a year without my girlfriend because I couldn't; I was prohibited. I couldn't have a social life, I couldn't drink, I couldn't smoke, I couldn't use nicotine to calm down, I couldn't get stressed, I couldn't complain when we lost a round. Complaining was the thing I heard the most all day, "arT, you have to be a better athlete, you have to be a leader, you can't complain."

Regarding the more recent events, arT revealed that before FURIA secured Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, the organization had a meeting with Marcelo "coldzera" David to see if he wanted to join the Brazilian squad.

[Reading from chat] coldzera was an option for FURIA? Yes, we had a meeting with him. I don't remember when, I believe it was before negotiations with FalleN, maybe.

The former FURIA IGL also talked about the veto against G2 on the opening game of the Elimination Stage of the PGL Copenhagen Major, telling that he wasn't there and that it was a decision made by FalleN and guerri. FURIA would go on to lose that map 13-3, after a 9-3 deficit on the T-side.

We discussed the maps that could be going through the night prior and it was supposed to come down to Ancient and Nuke, I don't know correctly, and G2 banned a map that we didn't think they would ban. Inferno and Mirage or Nuke were left over, I don't remember. I wasn't present because since he became IGL, it was him and guerri doing the veto. Then we ended up playing Inferno.

These excerpts were found in clips from arT's stream posted on YouTube and X. arT doesn't save his VODs and yesterday night was not an exception.