Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut has kicked off 2025 in scorching form, arguably playing the best Counter-Strike of his career.
With a 1.43 rating and two trophies already secured, the French superstar looks like a man on a mission.
Though ZywOo is known for downplaying personal accolades, Vitality head coach Rémy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam revealed in a recent interview with L’Équipe that the AWPer may have taken last year’s Top 20 ranking more personally than he has shown publicly.
– Normally, the start of the season is not his thing, historically though… I think he was a little upset by the top 3 [HLTV’s ranking], even if he doesn’t really say so… He didn’t say it, even if we often asked him, but I think that the situation in the second half of last season was often a little heavy for him, as for everyone.
– I say that we recruited two players this year: Ropz and the ZywOo top 3 (smiles.) There are things that he wants to improve, even if it remains between him and me. I think it does him good to have fresh blood, XTQZZZ said to the French outlet.
HLTV’s Top 5 in their ‘Player of the Year’ award (2024):
Danil “donk” Kryshkovets- Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
Nikola “NiKo” Kovač
Justinas “jL” Lekavicius
“The best Vitality in history”
The numbers speak for themselves — Vitality is off to a phenomenal start in 2025. With titles at IEM Katowice and ESL Pro League Season 21, and just one loss all year, the team looks more dangerous than ever.
In the interview with L’Équipe, XTQZZZ isn’t shy about calling this Vitality roster the strongest in the organization’s history.
– I think that over the last two tournaments, we saw the best Vitality in history, given the level we have. We feel very good. Having already achieved an objective like Katowice, it freed us, whereas last year, we had to wait seven months to get our first trophy. What we wanted was to ride this momentum.
Vitality will be in action again on Monday when they take on MOUZ at BLAST Open Lisbon 2025.
