The Brazilian crowd at IEM Rio Major felt happy as ever after FURIA, one of the home teams, swept GamerLegion 2-0 in the 2-1 pool of the Challengers Stage to book their spot in the next stage of the $1.25 million CS:GO tournament, the Legends Stage.
The home crowd left the Riocentro venue frustrated in the past days of the competition due to 00 Nation and Imperial leaving the Major with a 0-3 record yesterday, but today the crowd left the venue with a smile on their face as FURIA breezed past the Europeans of GamerLegion, becoming the first Brazilian squad to move on to the next stage of the Major.
The captain of FURIA, Andrei “arT” Piovezan, didn’t hold back his emotions after the match was over. “This is the best event of my career for sure,” he told reporter James Banks in the post-match interview. “We needed to do it for the show, everybody was cheering for us and we needed to do it.”
FURIA had no problem whatsoever beating GamerLegion today despite the European’s slight recovery on the second half of Vertigo (16-9) and Inferno (16-11). The Brazilian side won the first half of both maps by 11-4, setting up the tone of the how the series would be played for GamerLegion. AWPer Rafael “saffee” Costa had the most kills in the series, finishing with 44 frags.
Tomorrow, another home team will fight to qualify for the IEM Rio Major Legends Stage. The South American mix of 9z, which features Brazilian AWPer Lucas “nqz” Soares and head coach Rafael “zakk” Fernandes, will play versus Fnatic for a spot in the next stage of the Brazilian Major.
