Counter-Strike champion coach reveals his love for Palmeiras

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Nosso Palestra

·23 September 2025

Counter-Strike champion coach reveals his love for Palmeiras

The Brazilian Counter-Strike team FURIA was crowned champion last Sunday (21) of the FISSURE Playground 2 by defeating 'The MongolZ', the leader of the ranking in the category. The team is made up of 'FalleN', 'yuurih' and 'KSCERATO' from Brazil, 'YEKINDAR' from Latvia, and 'molodoy' from Kazakhstan. The title was very special for the coach of the organization who is a fan of Palmeiras.

Interview with the commander

In an interview with OUR PALESTRA, 'Sidde' spoke about his passion, recalled how he started cheering for the Greatest Champion of Brazil and the difficulties of following the club while living in Europe.

Video OneFootball

My relationship with Palmeiras is a relationship of much love, that unconditional love that only those who are Palmeiras fans understand. It started from a very young age, from father to son like most of us. My father, since I can remember, taught me to love Palmeiras and I always saw him showing a lot of love for the club and I was learning. I was born in 1997 and so I don't remember much, but that moment of glory in the 90s, the end of the Libertadores, a very magical and very remarkable moment. Since I have my first memories, I already remember my father cheering and I was learning from a young age.

- Being in Europe it's a bit more complicated to follow, to watch the games live. It's almost impossible, especially the Libertadores games that are in the evening. We are 4, 5 hours ahead normally, so it's very difficult, but I watch highlight videos, I follow everything that comes out as soon as I wake up in the morning after the game. When there is an earlier match, for the Brasileirão, we manage to watch. - he added

Photo: Reproduction/Instagram

'All the love I feel for you, I will pass on to my children'

'Sidde' makes a point of putting into practice the song of the Palmeiras fans and passes on the passion for the club to his son.

My passion for Palmeiras comes from father to son, I do the same with my son. In fact, he is the biggest Palmeiras fan I have ever seen in my life, I have never seen anyone love a club so much. When I am in Brazil I try to take him to have this experience a little more than I had.

- My first steps as a Palmeiras fan was always following my father and I heard him talk a lot about Evair, Edmundo, Alex. But for me, there's no way not to think of Marcão when I think Palmeiras. Not only for me, but for any Palmeiras fan, he is number one. - he highlights

Football x CS

- I believe that a lot of my tactical interest, not only for CS, but for all sports, came a lot from football and from watching and trying to understand a little more why some things happen, and clearly those who like high performance look up to several coaches, not only Abel, but coaches from other modalities as well, and certainly, being a Palmeiras fan, Abel is one of my biggest references. When I think of Abel, and I was able to read his book, with all certainty, he is one of those guys who does this part of squad and group management. And at the same time he maintains a very large constancy. - he said

When I think about work, about similarity, about what I try to pull from Abel to my world, it's to maintain this constancy of results, to always be among the main teams, regardless of whether you have player rotation. So, reading Abel's book, you realize that everything is very well thought out, there is a lot of care in how he is going to manage and take care of the group and I try to bring a lot of this vision of the coach being more than the tactical role for the team. To bring this balance of all parts and clearly the tactical part. It's nice to see how Abel works with his assistants and how he makes the whole group work very well. I usually say that Abel, manages more than a team, manages the players, his staff's part. So, for sure, Abel is one of my great references.

Beginning of Counter-Strike

'Sidde' recalled how he entered the world of Counter-Strike and the process of being hired by FURIA, the main team in the category. The coach also highlighted the desire to see Palmeiras investing in the so-called 'eSports'.

- It would be a great pleasure to see Palmeiras investing in 'eSports', we see some investments happening by some clubs, but not always directly. Usually it's someone using the club's image, outsourcing. But to think about having Palmeiras and one day, who knows, even wearing the Verdão shirt within the world of games would be something fantastic. The work that the club does as in traditional sports is a reference in all modalities, and one day, who knows, to have this in games would be fantastic, it would be a great pleasure. - he highlighted

I entered this universe through university games. I always wanted to be a CS player. I tried, when we had CS 1.6, the infamous CS from Lan House, very young, and the professional scene was not so evolved, so widespread and also did not have the same level of investment that we have today. So, at that time, I dedicated myself a lot, I was 14, 15 years old, but there was no way to be professional at that time. I got back in touch with CS already in college. I moved in with some friends and there they introduced me to CS again. And I started to create that passion for the game again. I tried to be a player until there came a point that I realized that, well, playing was not for me anymore, I didn't have as much time to dedicate myself, I needed to study, and I offered to help a friend's team as a coach.

- In the first week I already realized that this was what I wanted to do, and I continued to improve, studying a lot, until after participating in some university championships, I received an invitation to be a coach of a professional team, in São Paulo. I was in the last week of college, I had already done everything, I lived in Paraná at the time, just waiting to return to São Paulo, to continue my life, and, out of nowhere, I received a message. A team found a video of mine on YouTube, doing a tactical analysis of a game, and wanted to know if you are interested in talking and taking over as coach. From this moment on, everything started to happen, a gigantic growth. In 2023 I had the opportunity to join FURIA. I have a lot to thank the people from the university who gave me the chance, for the people from the first team who called me, it was a story of going up the stairs. - he completed

Great achievement

'Sidde' highlighted the title won last Sunday (21) against the number one team in the CS ranking. A Brazilian team had not won a tournament of this magnitude for about eight years.

- Our achievement this weekend was very special. Everyone saw that it was something historic, right? Brazil had been without lifting a title of this magnitude for eight years. Being able to be part of this is very special. We worked very hard for this and we know what the life of competition is like, right? Invariably you will lose more than you win. And the secret of all this is to always keep the faith that your time will come and continue working, evolving and looking beyond the result. We have a team now with the participation of two foreigners. We made this change in April and since then we needed to go through a process of adaptation. communication, with communication in English. There is also a cultural part bringing players who came from a completely different world to ours, and little by little, we were catching how the team was going to work. I was managing the team, understanding the need of each player, and the team was evolving, it's very cool. From the beginning we realized that we had put five very good guys to play together. - he affirmed

As in football, making what people call a panel, is not enough. You need to understand about the system that the team will work, how the team will follow, what each one is individually, what each one is for the group. So, from the very beginning, the work was following this line, until there came a moment when we realized that we were playing very well. We started to qualify for several final stages of the championship. We played a semifinal, some quarterfinals, until the point came that everything started to flow very well. This championship, I think it's not crazy to say, was the highest level CS we played, even for the title. So, naturally, everything was fitting together and things happened. It's a very remarkable feeling. It's a unique sensation to know that we achieved something so difficult, so complicated, especially for Brazilian CS. So, it's a pleasure, a great satisfaction.