FURIA player Yuri yuurih Santos gave an interview to Players reporter Sofiia Pikhalo during media day ahead of the IEM Cologne 2025 playoffs in CS2.
Hello, how are you? How was your day?
Good, I woke up early today because I had to do some interviews, several shots, so it has been good.
Did you have rest enough before playoff?
I mean, we're gonna have today and tomorrow, but tomorrow we're gonna practice, so we want to have a lot of time to rest. But, I mean, if I sleep like 8 hours, it's fine right now.
It is already a lot. How do you assess your transition to an international roster? Was it difficult to adapt to communication, to playstyle?
For me, it was easy, like, my English is not so good, but I'm having an English class. But the English in Counter-Strike is a little bit different, because it's easier when you're gonna talk some positions, so it's easy. So, yeah, I think even on molodoy he didn't have a lot of difficulties to speak, like, it has been very nice, not bad.
And about, like, strats planning, so everything still understandable or you sometimes switching to your language?
No, sometimes we need to talk in English, like, every time. But some situations in Counter-Strike, like me and KSCERATO, me and FalleN is alive, only us, we talk in Portuguese, for example. So, these situations, like, molodoy and YEKINDAR, they speak, like, their language as well. Only these situations, but when we are talking about strats, about the game, you need to talk in English, so it's fine.
This is your third playoffs in five tournaments for you and your team, are you happy with this result?
Yeah, of course, like, before we had, like, bad results, so we changed everything, I changed my positions in the game, so everything has been new for me, and I'm doing great, I think everyone is doing great as well. And, like, playing well every tournament that we play is very nice, like getting playoffs is the main goal. And, of course, win the tournament, like, it's amazing, it will be amazing. Yeah, I'm so happy, everyone is happy, and let's see, we need to play game by game.
So you're not letting some loses distract you from the main goal to be consistent with this game.
Of course.
It's your first playoff game against MOUZ, so are you ready to surprise them with something, since your last matches ended in their favor?
Yeah, I know it will be a hard game, but, I mean, in Counter-Strike in this level, everything could happen, so we need to be ready for them, we need to have a good prep, and I think we need to kill them as well. If everyone is killing, I think you can win, but yeah, it will be a hard game, but you can win.
You have some secret stats.
Yeah, everyone has.
You can tell me something.
I don't know, let's see, I didn't even see their game, I'm gonna watch today and see the maps. So it's really dependent on their plays.
Everyone thought that you were close and clear, outsider, like, just run through this tournament easily and get out. First games, but you're in the playoff. And it was the same in the match against Falcons, so it was obvious that you're an outsider against Falcons. How did you feel to play against them? They're a hyped team, recognizable, famous players. How difficult was it to play against kyousuke, for example?
Oh, actually, he was really good in the game. He killed like 16, 16 more kills than I ever had. But I mean, the first map, we made a lot of mistakes, but the second map, it was fine. The third map, it was tough. The third map, the last map, it was tough. But yeah, against Falcons, when you have players like m0NESY, NiKo, kyousuke, of course the game will be very hard. But I mean, we did great as well, everyone played very well. We were better than them.
Usually it's a question for captains and someone who behind the strats. But what do you think about the new update in CS that happened a few days ago? Did you see already it?
I see that most of the people didn't like it. I didn't like as well the animations, but I need to see more. But I like the changes they made in the maps, like Train, Inferno and Overpass, I like it. It's cool for the map pool, you know, you change a little bit the things. But the animations, I don't know, it's weird.
Do you think your strats or preparation before the matches will be a little bit different, to be prepared for both versions, old and new, because we still don't know on which version you will play?
I think we need to keep what we are doing. We are doing a good prep, actually. We are changing a lot of things, fixing some stuff that we made. I think we won't change, we will do the same.
So, are you nervous for these games?
I mean, in arena, when you go there and you found out you are found, you feel a little bit nervous, but when the game starts, like…
You feel like calm.
Yeah, because I'm doing this for 8 years already, so for me it's normal.
So even some changes in the roster don't change your confidence...
No, no, no, it's fine, really fine.
