The IEM Rio is taking place on Brazilian soil; the tournament has generated endless emotions throughout the CS:GO community. A situation that has caused sadness in Brazil is that FalleN is eliminated from the tournament in his hometown.
Team Imperial is the team where Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo plays. Unfortunately, things have not gone as planned this time for the team; after two consecutive losses FalleN and his team say goodbye to IEM Rio.
Brazilian CS:GO star FalleN is eliminated from his local tournament
The Brazilian CS:GO community was very excited to see one of the best players on home soil. This was made possible after Imperial replaced Virtus.pro, who decided not to attend the tournament after sitting out the BLAST Paris Major.
However, the excitement of the Brazilians has been short-lived as FalleN and his team have had a terrible performance and are out of the tournament. The local star says goodbye to his home crowd after losing two matches. The first was against Ninjas in Pyjamas in a best-of-one game. After that, Imperial could not face their rival on the Mirage map and lost 16-5.
After that defeat, the team was relegated to the lower bracket, where they faced The MongolZ. In this match, Imperial had been giving the best of the team, which could be seen with Ricardo “boltz” Prass, who stood out in the first part of the match resulting in a 16-3 victory.
However, the Mongolian team responded quickly in Inferno and took the 16-12 victory, although the Brazilians tried to return. Then on the next map, The MongolZ played a match on Mirage, a decisive match where they won.
The Brazilian team fought every point trying to get the victory; at one point, Imperial managed to weaken the economy of their rival thanks to this, they forced overtime. However, the Brazilians couldn’t win and saw their rival win 16-14.
"No regrets, I want to give back to the community that has had my back my whole career."@BanKsEsports caught up with @FalleNCS after @imperialesports were eliminated from #IEM Rio 2023 🥹 pic.twitter.com/mMf119YYDA
— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) April 17, 2023
FalleN and Imperial say goodbye to their fans
With this defeat, FalleN and Imperial say goodbye to their fans in Rio. For FalleN, it has been a difficult season as it has seen them go from one defeat to another; consequently, a legend of esports will not be present at the last CS:GO Major.
After the defeat, FalleN gave an interview where he commented that his team has been failing lately in Inferno, and his rival team was able to capitalize on Imperial’s weaknesses. On the other hand, FalleN comments that his team was thinking of taking a break before being invited to this tournament. However, they were not going to let this opportunity pass them by.
The Brazilian player ended the interview by saying he is looking forward to supporting his teammates MIBR and 9z, the South American representatives, in the exhibition match in Rio on April 23.