After their loss to Crazy Raccoon, Havan Liberty’s head coach, Ricardo “rik” Furquim, spoke with Upcomer about the loss and the Brazilian region as a whole. Rik pointed to the team’s mental state as a reason for their surprising loss to the Japanese representatives since its members are largely inexperienced on LAN and are known to get flustered easily in matches. According to rik, Havan Liberty is not great at combating fast rushes and Crazy Raccoon abused that fact. Once he caught on and sent the game into a pause, he calmed his team down and told them their new game plan, but Crazy Raccoon adapted quickly and the series ended in a clean 2-0 sweep for the Japanese side.
When asked for his thoughts on Brazil in VALORANT as a whole, rik agreed they are no where close to the region’s status in Counter-Strike. No VALORANT squad has won a major tournament, let alone multiple — but according to rik that can change with time and discipline.
“The basics need to be improved in Brazil,” rik said. “In Europe, we’ve played a lot of ranked matches and everyone knows the basics. In Brazil, they don’t.”
Havan Liberty and rik are now out of Berlin and will have a chance at international competition again through the Last Chance Qualifier. If they make it through, Havan Liberty will start their champions journey on Dec. 2.
