‘One more year’: FalleN details his retirement plans

The legend explained he's feeling "drained."

Photo by Stephanie Lindgren via ESL Gaming

Despite an early exit from the IEM CS:GO Rio Major following a loss to Cloud9 in the 0-2 bracket of the Challengers Stage, Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo is not retiring from competitive play just yet.

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The Brazilian legend explained in a post-match interview that he’s made some commitments with the Imperial Esports roster, and he’s planning to keep his word, which means he’ll be playing for one more year or so. But he also underlined that he’s feeling “drained” and he needs to focus on his private life as well.

“I’m planning to play one more year because when I wanted to create this team, a lot of pieces were removed, and when I make commitments, I really want to live up to that,” FalleN said.

He also shared his perspective on his personal approach to CS:GO and his competitive career. “Personal-wise, I feel like I have to do other stuff in my life… I’m getting too drained,” FalleN explained.

He added that while he loves the game, he wants to leave it to focus on other matters that are important to him, like family. But he wants “to make sure” he’s fair to other players in the Imperial roster.

Counter-Strike has been an important part of FalleN’s life for 18 years. When the 31-year-old finally decides to call it quits on his career, it will be a historical day for the game and esports as a whole.

The IEM CS:GO Rio Major continues today at 9am CT.

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Image of Mateusz Miter
Mateusz Miter
Polish Staff Writer. Mateusz previously worked for numerous outlets and gaming-adjacent companies, including ESL. League of Legends or CS:GO? He loves them both. In fact, he wonders which game he loves more every day. He wanted to go pro years ago, but somewhere along the way decided journalism was the more sensible option—and he was right.