Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo is the leader and brain behind FURIA’s recent revival. His in-game leader switch from AWP to rifle has given the team space for molodoy, the young AWPer leading the charge right now. After a tournament win at FISSURE Playground 2, FURIA arrive at the Thunderpick World Championship 2025 amid an environment of changing expectations.
We were able to catch up with FalleN ahead of the Thunderpick WC 2025, to see how he’s feeling about being among the favorites and more!
Daniel Morris: It seems like the expectations for FURIA keep getting higher with every strong performance. Looking at the teams that are here at the Thunderpick World Championship, what expectations are you setting for yourself going into the event?
Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo: We always want to win every tournament we play, but reality is it’s not possible for any team in the world, including Vitality, they still lose. So coming to a tournament like this, we want to make sure that we can play good CS. It’s going to be a challenge for us because of the very packed schedule. We have been on the road for quite a while now and not many days of preparation. But on the other hand, we have a lot of experience playing together in those tournaments. You grow game by game. So I think that there’s a lot of good teams here. And you know, I wouldn’t take it for granted that we need to win or something like that. We just need to be sure that we can play the best CS we can. And maybe we’re going to be fighting for a title or not.
Daniel: But for yourself, I’ve got to ask, I feel like even a couple of years ago, you spoke about maybe retirement and the end of the line for your career. It feels as though this move to the rifle has given you a new lease of life. Do you feel the same way? Do you think this shift to rifling has given you a little bit more longevity?
FalleN: Definitely. I think by playing a different role and being able to perform well in that role and make the team fight for titles again definitely gives me opportunity to play, play for more. And when I was making this change, it was one of the goals to check out how to play a different role, to see if I could be helping more and if I could make a team to play that good again. So I’m quite happy with it, but time will tell. I don’t want to say anything regarding what I’m going to do or not, because I still even don’t know, I’m still figuring it out.
Daniel: Well, you guys have already won one LAN event this year. What would it mean to take home another one here in Malta?
FalleN: It would be amazing. It would be amazing to win more titles before the end of the year. We lifted a LAN trophy at FISSURE in Belgrade and we’re just looking for more. You know, we lost to the finalists last time in Stockholm. Now for Vitality, they won the tournament and you know it’s going to be like that on this top level. So many good teams and it’s very difficult to win every tournament. And for us, it’s all about making sure that we’re coming strong to every match we play and if we keep doing that consistently, then we’re going to be talking about tournaments in the future.
Daniel: Well, we’ve already touched on expectations, but I do just want to come back to that for a moment. This is another event where we’d consider you to be among the favourites. How do you handle that compared to maybe those increasingly rare occasions where you’re still a big underdog?
FalleN: It’s definitely a different kind of pressure that normally is going to affect you and your teammates and you as a team. It’s very important to have the set mind straight in terms of… not really overthinking about yourself. In a way, we’ve got to make sure that we are prepared well for all teams we’re going to be playing here. And I always say in different interviews as well that the Tier 2 scene and the teams, the upcoming teams, they’re playing just as good CS as the best teams. I just think that sometimes they’re not just as consistent and sometimes they rely on different puzzles to get their rounds. And it’s one of the things where sometimes it’s even harder to play against those teams because they have some tricks under their sleeves that normally other top teams don’t really rely on those, but if you don’t know what they are, they are very effective. So playing against those teams is not easy. So I would say that the challenge is just as big as playing big teams. It’s just a different way of being challenging.
Daniel: OG are your first opponents in Malta? Give me your take on them and where they’re at right now.
FalleN: I have been watching some of their games for preparation. I started yesterday and I can see that in some maps. They have very good ideas and as I said, they have some tricks under their sleeves that often you don’t see in other teams. So as long as you are aware of some things that can happen, then you have a better chance of holding some stuff. And I think they play good cs. I think they are a very capable team and if we are not really on point and we are not really prepared, we are not going to win. So we’ve got to make sure that we have everything on point and I’m hoping for a good match.
Daniel: Is there anything in particular that you’ve prepared for this opening match without obviously giving too much away or is it just business as usual for you guys because you’re the favourites?
FalleN: A little bit of business as usual. We want to understand what they think, we want to understand how they move and which things they rely on and doing this research as I’m watching previous matches they played, you can see some tendencies and you can see some things a little bit of their flavour. A little bit of what they think and yeah some of those things are going to be helpful when choosing strategies, they’re going to be helping when choosing a gameplan. Reacting as well during the moments in the heat during the rounds, because there are some takeaways you can see on some rotations, on some patterns from some players. So a lot of things can come through you never know which one of them is going to come but you got to have some of the needs under the radar.
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