If you’ve been waiting for FURIA to point fingers over a rough 2026, don’t hold your breath. Speaking to HLTV at the StarSeries Fall media day on September 16, Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis made clear that his team’s response to a title-less year, and to the looming retirement of Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, is built on individual accountability rather than crisis mode.

“There are a lot of things happening in the team from the start of the year, and it’s more about focusing on and figuring out the problems and the things we have to fix, one by one,” YEKINDAR told HLTV.

A Grinding Season Without a Trophy

FURIA hasn’t lifted a title in 2026, a stark contrast to the form that carried them into deep runs late last year. There have been high points, grand-final appearances at IEM Krakow and the IEM Cologne Major among them, but consistency has been the real casualty.

Add a brutal travel schedule to the mix, and you get a team that’s admittedly running on fumes heading into the back half of the year. FURIA’s competitive calendar mirrors what plenty of top rosters are dealing with right now, a theme also touched on in Esports.net’s recent CS2 tournament coverage examining how packed schedules are reshaping form across the scene.

Fatigue, a Loss to G2, and No Finger-Pointing

YEKINDAR didn’t sugarcoat the grind. The team had complained about the schedule before accepting reality: this is the situation, and it’s time to just get on with it. After a loss to G2, the squad sat down in the team room and, notably, skipped the blame game entirely.

“There’s no point in choosing who’s wrong, or if somebody did something wrong or whatever. We’re just failing as a team right now,” was the conclusion, according to YEKINDAR. That framing has carried into how FURIA is approaching matches against MIBR and repeated meetings with Legacy, treated as learning reps rather than must-win statements.

He was equally blunt about expectations: FURIA isn’t walking into events assuming a trophy is owed to them. “I don’t think anyone is thinking like, ‘Oh, we’re itching to win an event, [so] we deserve to win an event,'” he said, adding that the team is chasing good signals rather than manufacturing entitlement.

Trust Over Therapy

Asked directly how the team is coping with the shadow of FalleN’s coming retirement, YEKINDAR skipped the corporate wellness route entirely. “There are things that are working, and there are times when it’s brought up, but mainly it’s everyone’s individual responsibility to be the best version of themselves for the game, for the tournament, and we trust each other,” he said.

No sports psychologist, no scripted intervention, just five guys agreeing to hold themselves to a standard. It’s a philosophy that echoes how other top-tier CS2 rosters have handled internal turbulence, something Esports.net explored when covering Team Spirit’s own title-chasing run at the Esports World Cup.

What This Actually Means for FURIA

YEKINDAR was refreshingly honest about the limits of self-analysis here. There’s no way to isolate whether FalleN’s retirement, or the knowledge that changes are coming, is quietly sabotaging FURIA’s game. “We’re never going to know that,” he admitted.

What FURIA can control is the next map, the next tournament, and each player’s own preparation. Nothing here confirms who eventually replaces FalleN’s calling duties or what the post-retirement roster looks like, and YEKINDAR isn’t pretending otherwise. For now, the plan is simpler than a succession chart: fix the problems one by one, and trust that everyone shows up as their best version.