saffee on being a late bloomer: I’ve worked really hard to be here
Despite an 8-year break from competitive CS, the FURIA AWPer still managed to reach the top.
At the age of 27, Rafael “saffee” Costa made his dream move when he joined the Brazilian heavy hitters from FURIA earlier this year. A transfer that marked the arrival to top-tier Counter-Strike for the former paiN profile, after having been away from the competitive scene for over eight years.
In the modern-day of CS:GO, it’s quite unusual to see a player break through to the top of the game at such a high age. At the newly-concluded IEM Katowice, we got the opportunity to speak with saffee to hear about his rather uncommon CS:GO journey.
- I started out playing 1.6 for like two years, but then I stopped for eight years to focus on my studies and things like that. Since I came back to the Counter-Strike scene, I just started to play and improve myself as fast as possible by watching demos and playing FPL.
- I’ve worked really hard to be here – yeah that’s it.
saffee and FURIA have played two tournaments so far in 2022, reaching the Grand Final at ESL Challenger February.
- I’m pretty confident (that he can improve and elevate FURIA). Of course, there will be some time to adapt to the way these guys play, because FURIA’s way is kind of different to what I experienced in paiN. You need to be quicker with your reactions in the rounds.
You can watch the entire interview, where captain Andrei "arT" Piovezan also joined in talking about FURIA's expectations for 2022, down below.
