IEM Rio Major 2022: NAVI’s sdy on facing FURIA

The IEM Rio Major 2022 playoffs for CS:GO just kicked off this Friday. Ahead of the game, Esports.gg interviewed players Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev from NAVI and Rafael "saffee" Costa from FURIA.

Playing his first major for NAVI, sdy told us about facing the home team. According to the Ukrainian rifler, even though the crowd will be against them, this will probably not be a problem for his squad.

"Personally, I've never played against the crowd, but probably will be fun," sdy said. "But I'm the guy that don't rely on [the] crowd or something. When I'm playing Counter-Strike, I don't even hear anything but Counter-Strike. So for me, it's not a big deal to play against the crowd, and I think that for the rest of the team, [it's] the same."

The player joined NAVI after the team benched Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhaylov, according to an announcement posted by NAVI. Sdy had to adapt his role with Valerii "b1t" Vakhovskyi and enter a team that played together for a long time.

"In the beginning, it was really, really hard to understand all of the things that they implement in the game, but now I'm feeling more confident day by day," sdy said. "Entering this team, I had to adapt and now, my roles are not the same that b1t plays. I think that in Counter-Strike, there [are] no bad roles."

In the case of FURIA, the team has the crowd by its side. Saffee acknowledged that Natus Vincere player Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev is a huge competitor and even influenced him as an AWPer in CS:GO. Teams FURIA and Natus Vincere are currently going head to head for the last spot in the tournament's semifinals.

"S1mple was always a player that I tried to study when I started playing with the AWP," saffee said. "He's an inspiration for many players out there. And for me, it wasn't different. But, for this game, I try to think that [there are] five players in the server. It's always 5v5, no matter the name of the player."

Saffee also said how excited he and FURIA are to play in front of the crowd in the Jeunesse Arena located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He said this helped the team without taking focus away from preparing for the game.

"The feeling is amazing," saffee said. "We're looking forward and excited to play in front of the crowd again. Even more that now it will be in a 360-degree arena. So the sensation will be different [from] how it was in Riocentro. Very excited and very focused on this challenge."

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