FalleN ready to cement legacy at home Rio Major with new look Imperial Joao Ferreira for ESLIt\u2019s hard to think about CS:GO without Gabriel \u2018FalleN\u2019 Toledo at the top, but that\u2019s the future fans are having to think about. The 31-year-old is winding down with Imperial over the next 18 months, but thoughts of a home Major in Rio has added a pep in his step as he finalizes his legacy. DreamHack Melbourne ended in an all-Brazilian final featuring Imperial and paiN Gaming. The two squads decimated the rest of the event and were the headline acts \u2014 especially after OG bombed out early to Chinese underdogs Wings Up Gaming. While they fell short of actually lifting the title in Rod Laver Arena, it was a great experience for Imperial, especially debutant Marcelo \u2018chelo\u2019 Cespedes. The 24-year-old, formerly of MIBR, posted the second-best rating for the tournament at 1.22, just behind his 31-year-old captain in FalleN who was making magic with the AWP down under with a 1.25 rating. This move did come at somewhat of a personal cost to FalleN, with long-time friend Lincoln \u2018fnx\u2019 Lau moving into a more supportive role behind the scenes. But it\u2019s one that\u2019ll prime Imperial better for the Rio Major \u2014 arguably the most important event in the Brazilian\u2019s career. From the early days at DreamHack Melbourne, it looks to have been a solid upgrade. \u201cI think he\u2019s slotted in pretty well,\u201d FalleN told Dexerto. \u201cI think he\u2019s one of the best Brazilian players recently. He was doing well on MIBR and we needed a change for the second half of the season. \u201cWe moved fnx to a more supportive role \u2014 he\u2019s going to be helping us as a coach in some tournaments, he\u2019s also doing some other stuff for the org. We really appreciate what he has done for the team before. It was amazing to play with him again, it\u2019s probably my fifth or sixth time playing with him because we have been through so many cycles. He\u2019s a big friend of mine.\u201d There\u2019s some things chelo adds to Imperial, lifting the whole team. Watching him from the crowd in Melbourne, he was energetic and kept the hype high. He was riling up the Brazilian fans sitting in the front row, and he was out of his chair every time one of his teammates was on fire. That exuberance is a big positive. \u201cI think he adds an extra spicy atmosphere because he\u2019s always very loud, lifting the mood, always wanting to win and demonstrating that to the team all the time. That helps in a lot of moments. He\u2019s also a great player. He knows what he\u2019s doing, great aim, and he\u2019s only going to get better. \u201cEven when he wasn\u2019t playing that great \u2014 the Nuke game [against Grayhound] wasn\u2019t one of his best games \u2014 but he still was there mentally, energy-wise, and that\u2019s important because if you want to be the best player you have to be there at all times even when things are tough.\u201d In the server, he\u2019s also got the experience of a new style of Counter-Strike fnx couldn\u2019t quite replicate coming out of retirement. \u201cfnx knows a lot about the game. Very talented. But the game evolved a lot lately and he hadn\u2019t played [seriously] for many many years. You\u2019ve got to be thinking about a lot of things during the round these days, like so many things that you didn\u2019t have to think about in the past. \u201cThat change for fnx would take a lot of time if that ever happened because he\u2019s just used to a different style of CS for so many years. He still has so many good qualities \u2014 the clutch ability, the communication on point, the teamplay, and the basics. He\u2019s very very good. But those reads and those abilities to understand what\u2019s going on because someone said something \u2014 all those small reads, Chelo can do that better because he\u2019s been playing CS more and more recently.\u201d FalleN\u2019s legacy All this discussion about Imperial \u2014 and what could be \u2014 has to be framed in the legacy of FalleN. Now in his 30s, he\u2019s kept it no secret his playing career is winding down; he puts his time left at around 18 months, to the end of 2023. Any Counter-Strike fan would have at least some memory of him \u2014 no matter how young or old. Whether it was peak Luminosity-SK Gaming core, or some of his recent ventures and this last dance. DreamHack Melbourne proved age is still no factor for him, his reflexes with the AWP still on point. What is changing though is priorities outside of Counter-Strike. More than a decade in the industry, pushing aside responsibilities, is catching up to him. Time on the road, especially during the last few years, has been draining. As that time winds down on his career, he wants to start appreciating the smaller things. \u201cThere\u2019s two things that\u2019s very important for me as I stop and the first one is being able to stay more at home. Since 2015 when I moved from Brazil to the US to compete, I have been on the road for seven years. We had gaming houses and we were playing more in North America so it felt like a second home. \u201cBut since [the global health crisis] there is no home. You are literally from hotel to hotel, bootcamp to bootcamp, and it\u2019s draining. I have a wife, we have a dog, a house that I want to use. I want to be in the place I want to be. It\u2019s important for me to stay with my family a little bit more.\u201d Imperial themselves are making internal changes to try and stay in Brazil for the rest of the year \u2014 at least until the Major. This will allow the players proper rest and recovery time with family, but even for FalleN he has to compromise between his family and his wife. He calls it a \u201ccomplicated triangle\u201d of relationships between the two and Counter-Strike. \u201cCounter-Strike was always the number one priority. If you want to play as a professional and get as far as I did \u2014 I\u2019ve been doing that since 2009 \u2014 you have to put the game as your first priority. But no one can do it that long. It\u2019s complicated but at some point the waves will turn.\u201d What he does with his time after that is still up in the air, but it\u2019ll still involve esports: \u201cI want to do things for the community like I have done in the past. I have good knowledge of the game and I know how to explain things to get people to play better. \u201cOne of my goals is to continue Brazilian people to develop themselves and have more major winners in the future. I want to create something to continue that legacy.\u201d FalleN has achieved almost everything one could ask of in Counter-Strike. That made pinpointing one thing about his legacy an impossible question, but the friendships he made along the way has made everything worth it \u2014 even above the results. \u201cI\u2019m just proud of everything I achieved. I had so many people to help me, so many great teammates, so many great supporters. \u201cIt\u2019s 18 years playing this game. There\u2019s no Gabriel, no FalleN, without Counter-Strike. This game is everything to me and I love it, possibly one of the things I love most in my life. It\u2019s been a passion since I was 12 and I first played the game in a cyber cafe in Brazil.\u201d Getting a home Major in Rio What FalleN hasn\u2019t had the chance to do is play in front of a proper, big home crowd. That\u2019s changing with November\u2019s Rio Major. While initially penned for 2020, it was canceled due to the global health crisis. For the star Brazilian, that\u2019s a blessing in disguise. \u201cI think if the Major happened the first time there was a chance we wouldn\u2019t be there. The team wasn\u2019t great at that point. We were not playing that well and the challenge is on the same level right now, maybe harder, but we have the pieces to get there. I have to believe in that otherwise we have no chance fighting for it.\u201d He\u2019s lifted Major titles before and been at the top echelon of Counter-Strike. All of that would pale in comparison to hearing tens of thousands of Brazilians chanting his name, at the top of his lungs, as he relives his heyday in front of those passionate fans. FalleN knows what Brazilian crowds are like. He knows the world isn\u2019t prepared and he wants to put on a show \u2014 especially if it could be one of his last. \u201cI\u2019ve gone through a lot of things in Counter-Strike. There isn\u2019t anything I haven\u2019t achieved \u2014 maybe a Grand Slam, that\u2019s the only thing I haven\u2019t won in CS:GO. I have accomplished so many things in my career and I\u2019m quite happy with that. But the fact a Major is going to happen in my country? I want to be there and not only be there but also play in front of the crowd. \u201cNo one has experienced what it\u2019s going to be like in Rio. I\u2019m 100% sure of that. You can see that here [at DreamHack Melbourne] \u2014 you have 50 Brazilians in the crowd and you can hear the noise. Imagine a full stadium with 10,000 people. Those guys are insane. They love the show, they love to be there, they like to show they\u2019re there. It\u2019s going to be like nothing anyone has experienced, including myself. \u201cI\u2019ve played in Brazil before \u2014 ESL, BLAST \u2014 those tournaments are unforgettable. There was even one tournament we did there where the crowd was so close to the PCs, literally 3 foot away. It was like playing football at La Bombonera in Argentina \u2014 you can feel that it\u2019s different. You\u2019re listening to the game and the people screaming in front of you, and if they\u2019re not cheering for you it\u2019s going to be even harder. It\u2019s going to be great and I would really like to experience that.\u201d DreamHack Melbourne was a chance to warm up for the final sprint into Rio and get the blood flowing in front of a crowd again. The Brazilians always feed off that energy, and it was a goal for the team at the start of 2022. It\u2019s rejuvenating them at the perfect time. But good vibes won\u2019t be enough to make that playoffs run FalleN is dreaming of. The squad still needs some time to level up with chelo, but their ceiling is higher than most expect. \u201cTo reach [Rio], even though we don\u2019t have much time left, we\u2019ve got to be playing much better. It\u2019s going to be hard so we have to use our time well and put in motion the things we know are good in the game. You have to know what you have to do, but you also have to do it, and I think this roster can do those things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FalleN ready to cement legacy at home Rio Major with new look Imperial Joao Ferreira for ESLIt\u2019s hard to think about CS:GO without Gabriel \u2018FalleN\u2019 Toledo at the top, but that\u2019s the future fans are having to think about. The 31-year-old is winding down with Imperial over the next 18 months, but thoughts of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}