CS:GO
Olga "olga" Rodrigues is one of ESL Impact’s premier players. Her team, FURIA Fe, has long been the second-best team in the competition. After recent changes and the inclusion of Gabriela “bokor” Bokor, they are looking to stake a claim for Nigma Galaxy’s coveted position of the best team in Women’s CS:GO.
Although they fell to Nigma in Katowice, they are hopeful for their future. After the loss to Nigma, we caught up with olga to discuss just that.
Sam “AN1MO” McKenzie, BLIX.GG: So despite a very close series, unfortunately, you lost in the semifinal. How are you feeling about it?
Olga "olga" Rodrigues: I feel sad because we couldn't reach another final. But it felt like it was already a final, and we could have played so well against them, but we didn't. We won a map against Nigma Galaxy in Dallas and couldn’t do it again, even in the finals.
We did win a map here though, so I'm really glad because we had a new team, and new roles, and managed this performance today. So at the end of the day, I still feel happy.
BLIX.GG: They have been the dominant force for a while, but you push them really close then. Do you think that that gap is now closed?
olga: Yes, I feel like when you talk about other teams in Impact, Nigma is always improving. We also keep improving because we could have easier matches against other teams. So now with the new roster, I don't know what happened. I guess it was more like a mindset thing, and we could win a best-of-three against them.
I know we have the potential to win someday, and like I said, it's a new team. But for now, we have three or four months to play Dallas, and I promise you guys, we're going to come back stronger.
BLIX.GG: You had an incredible performance on map two. What were you thinking during that game?
olga: There's a thing we know about them they like to do. They also do a lot of anti-strats against us, and they always say to me “we all change our games, we see what olga does, and we try to punish her”. So this map is the first time we played Inferno on LAN.
It's a new map in our map pool, so they had nothing to watch, so I guess we could surprise them. I could surprise them. They didn't know enough about my place there. I feel they felt lost.
BLIX.GG: You recently made a roster move. Do you think that this new roster is the roster that will become the new number-one team?
olga: Yes, we have the potential to be the number one team now. bokor is an amazing player. She's young, she’s been playing since she was 13, and she's really proactive. That's what she loves to do. She is also so mature. Sometimes we do demo reviews, and we're arguing with each other, and she says “Guys, calm down, let's talk as human beings”.
She's really important to our team, and she proved that even despite being at her first international LAN for her, she could play very well.
BLIX.GG: Do you think the calming presence where she says “let's talk as human beings”, is what you were missing before?
olga: Yes, because sometimes we have these areas and we take a long time to start to talk properly and just argue. It's kind of in our heads that we get so stressed. You don't want to commit the same mistakes again. She's the youngest in the team, but when it does start to happen, we don't take too long to have those good conversations now.
She's teaching us to have more good talks and to be friends with each other, not just work with each other. But for example, after the first day, we had a talk about “okay, if bombsite A is not holding, is not getting the cues, let's talk to them, let's help, let's give ideas to bring it back, and to come back.” So yes, she's a fundamental piece of the team.
BLIX.GG: How are you feeling about her performance at the event? Are you happy with it?
olga: Yes. Really happy. Even though she was feeling pressure she performed very well. Everyone on the team was feeling pressure. I started by saying “guys, I'm so nervous, help me, please,” it's normal. I guess it's something about the fact that when you love the game, when you give everything yourself to it, you're going to feel it. You don't want to lose. You don't want to have a bad performance.
Sometimes it's good to not make mistakes. It's bad for confidence but when you start the game like this for me and it's just a thing of the first round, after the first few rounds, I just get into the game and do what I have to do.
BLIX.GG: If I'm right, saying you made the roster move after you lost a final to B4 recently. Was that a wake-up call that you were potentially falling further behind Nigma Galaxy?
olga:: We were already realizing it before it, but it was just a little push but it wasn't the reason for that loss. We didn't play well. It was a decision we had made before.
BLIX.GG: You see quite a lot of big wins in [ESL] Impact, teams just dominating. Why do you think that some of these scorelines are such big wins?
olga: A bit of confidence but also in Dallas and Valencia we could see the dominance of EU and South American performances and now we have Asia too with HSG. They are playing really well. I hope they have more qualifiers there. But NA teams aren’t getting good performances. I don't know what's happening.
It's something about the region or confidence because I mean, they [CLG Red] are a new roster as they changed after Dallas. So I don't know. Saints for example, they are from NA and also they are unsigned. So it's normal. It happens. Even tier-one teams are like this. But we can see these different situations affect performance.
BLIX.GG: So, finally, what are your hopes for the rest of the year?
olga: Became champion. That's the only thing I have in my mind.