"Spain is more focused on Valorant" - MUTiRiS on Iberian Counter-Strike, SAW's fantastic year and ESL Pro League S19 [Exclusive]

SAW has been a revelation in Counter-Strike 2 since the start of the 2024 season. The Portuguese roster made history by being the first team from the country to reach a Major event. The monumental achievement also marked 31-year-old IGL Christopher "MUTiRiS" Fernandes's first ever Major after more than 13 years of professional play.

Ahead of ESL Pro League Season 19, Sportskeeda Esports had the opportunity to talk with MUTiRiS about SAW's meteoric rise in a few months, their expectations at ESL Pro League Season 19, and more.

SAW's MUTiRiS talks about the team's growth in 2024, the Portuguese Counter-Strike scene, and more

Q) How has the preparation been for the ESL Pro League considering SAW was a last-minute replacement for Cloud9?

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MUTiRiS: Our preparation has been good, but we received this invitation about one and a half weeks ago. We are trying to prepare as much as possible to be in the best shape for the ESL Pro League. I am not going to say it has been the best preparation, but we are well prepared to expect a lot of good things here.

Q) Talk me through the incredible year SAW has had so far relative to expectations. Did you envision you and the team reaching these heights and qualifying for multiple tier-one events?

MUTiRiS: It has been amazing. We had been fighting for so long to be in a Major and put our names in the game and we were finally able to do it. We had a lot of chances to qualify for other Majors but it was our fault for not being able to make it, but we finally did it.

Right now, I can't ask more out of my team. We have played in the PGL Major RMR, the Major itself, and now the ESL Pro League as well. I won't say we don't deserve to be here, but we needed to replace a team. We are also going to be a part of the BLAST Premier Spring Finals, which is amazing as we are not used to being in these types of tournaments.

These tournaments also help us get a lot of experience and that's why we are aiming to qualify for these events. I think it is time now for SAW to reach some goals. For instance, the playoffs stage of the ESL Pro League is the main goal for the team and I think we can achieve this.

Q) We have not seen the Iberian scene and the Portuguese scene, in particular, make a lot of noise in Counter-Strike over the last few years. What does SAW's recent success mean for the future of Iberian and Portuguese Counter-Strike?

MUTiRiS: To be honest, the Portuguese Counter-Strike scene has a problem. The players don't have a lot of support from the organizations. SAW is an exception and is the best organization ever from the region. We are lucky to be playing under SAW which helps us focus only on playing the game with really good conditions to play in as well.

Looking at the Portuguese scene, we have a lot of possible talents that don't have the right people or organization to grow in which makes it really hard for the scene to grow as well.

If we need to make a change right now in the team, there are not a lot of good players that can fit in SAW so it's really hard to have a community like that. However, we have a good community in terms of how they cheer for us and the overall fanbase. When we are looking at good players, however, we don't have a lot.

I think something we can also do is Portugal and Spain helping each other. I think the Iberian Counter-Strike scene can help each other, but Spain is more focused on Valorant and they lost a lot of talent due to that.

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Q) Do you think the Portuguese scene can witness a change in attitude if SAW continues to perform well and attend big events? Does this also serve as a motivation for you to perform better or is it an added pressure?

MUTiRiS: Of course, it is always better when you have a good team. Everyone starts to like the team more. For instance, when I was a young player, my dream was to play with the best player in Portugal.

So I think this can have a positive impact which can lead to them streaming, working harder, and trying to land a spot and play with SAW. I think the level we are reaching is important for the community, organization, and the team as well.

For me, it's always a motivation. I have my dream job. I work every day and I have worked for so many years. Right now, I would say that I am at my peak, therefore I need to work even harder to reach my goals. I use this as a motivation because I live for Counter-Strike.

Q) We have seen many other tier-two and tier-three teams pop up and fall to mediocrity after a couple of good events. Do you have strategies to prevent this from being the case with SAW as tier-one teams start to view you as a legitimate threat and counter-strat you?

MUTiRiS: I think this is the hard part. A lot of teams have a good or few good tournaments and after that, they fail to remain consistent and stop growing more as a team. For me, it was always really important to feel the team growing day by day and right now that is what's happening to us.

In previous RMRs, even if we failed, I felt that the team was growing, which eventually paid off as we were able to do well in the PGL Major RMR and qualify for our first Major. The difficult part right now is to keep growing and try to reach that level.

However, to reach that level, you need the players to keep growing. We will just have to see how SAW grows with time but I think we are a very consistent team right now.

Q) Any closing thoughts you would like to share to the fans supporting SAW?

MUTiRiS: I really appreciate their passion and how they celebrate with us. We are working really hard to give them wins and be good at various tournaments. I just want to say thank you to everybody and we are going to do our best to reach our goals. I know the fans are really proud of the team and what we have been doing in the past few months.

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