Sidde interview: Their [9z] game plan was amazing

When the IEM Cologne Major playoff bracket was made official, the entire scene had the same thought: “FURIA have to make the finals.”

Despite that, after map 1, it seemed like 9z might end their hopes as soon as the quarters. It took clutches from yuurih, defuses so close it might have been microseconds off success, and most of all, belief.

No one was better positioned to see that than Sidnei "sidde" Macedo, FURIA’s coach. Here’s what he had to say about the series when we spoke to him after their win:

First of all, congratulations, how does it feel to finally break through the quarter-finals?

It feels amazing. It's my third Major with the team, and the last two we were a bit disappointing in terms of maybe not playing to our potential. I think here today we displayed what our team is made of. We had to fight until the end, it was a very difficult game. It feels amazing, it feels like breaking a curse. Yeah, let's try to go all the way now.

You said it was a struggle and part of that: Dust2. What did 9z do to make you guys fight for it?

Their game plan was amazing. Whenever you are playing a bit more passive, like we did CT- side, and the T's have perfect end games like they did the game is going to be so difficult. We tried adapting, but they kept switching up their game, they had different paces, different defaults, they played a perfect T-side. They prepared well for the map.

We actually thought they would pick Overpass, but they did a very good job picking Dust2. They were just amazing.

Is the fact you thought they were going to Overpass part of why you did so well on that final map?

Yeah, yeah, so, when we were vetoing the last map, we thought of leaving Inferno, but also we were so prepared for Overpass that I don't care if it's their best map. We were ready for it, let's go and win. We start CT-side, we also play really good on that map. We just believe that our map is really strong, even though we play against a really good Overpass team, we can always play against them.

So yeah, it just felt like let's go CT-side Overpass and maybe we will take it.

That's the mentality of some winners, thank you.