Insider Gaming spoke to Vitality AWPer Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut after a typical outstanding performance against FaZe in the Esports World Cup Counter-Strike tournament.
Alongside Vitality IGL Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire, ZywOo recently extended his contract with Vitality through 2028, meaning the pair’s historic collaboration will last a decade.
Insider Gaming interview with Vitality ZywOo at the Esports World Cup 2026
It’s just been announced that you’re going to play with Vitality up to the end of 2028, at least. What does it mean to be part of Vitality to you, and why do you think Vitality is so special?
I mean, for me, it’s always been special because they chose to pick me first when I was young and to put the trust in me, when other teams didn’t choose that and they suspected me to be a cheater or whatever.
They didn’t care, they tried to push me into the high level. And since that, I know that I have the trust from them. I know that all the people working for them trust me, and I love them as well.
So I didn’t even think about changing teams or changing club at any time for eight years now. So, it’s been amazing for now.
You’ll be playing with Apex for a decade, and you’re going to see him this year become a father. So what does it mean to you to be going through your career with apEX?
I think it’s funny. It’s kind of funny because we cannot really expect that.
When I joined him, he was already 25 or 24, and he was already kind of ‘old,’ and now he’s a little older, and he’s going to start to have a baby, and mezii having two babies now.
Like, it’s going to be kind of like an old team, and it’s kind of like fun to see the future when you think about the past.
Think about all the progress we have done, him and me, as well as a human, as a teammate as well.
So it’s been really fun to think about that, to think about I’ve been playing for eight, I mean, it’s going to be even 10 with him. So it has been really good.
As a result of apEX and mezii having children, you’re not playing a few events after this with your full roster. What is going to be the mentality going into those events, because you’re not at full strength, but I’m sure you’re a competitor?
I mean, it’s only one player. Maybe without apEX it’s going to be different. But when mezii is going to be out and jL in, he’s still a good player.
He still knows the game, he still understands the game. And he will just have to follow and refrag, I would say, because four of us know how we work and how we play.
So I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal for us. We’re just going to play our game, just going to do the easy things, and for us the main thing is to win.
So even though we’re not going to play with the full lineup, I think we’re going to be still a dangerous team to face.
So now for us, it’s going to be like the main focus is to win.
And then obviously after that, you know, you’re going to go into your kind of major preparation, you know. So it felt like for a lot of last season, you were like so far ahead.
Last season it felt like you were so far ahead, but with player absences, you might not have that full form in the middle of the season. So how are you going to be prepared for Singapore?
Like always, like we’re going to think about the game, play together, think about what we can do as a team.
That’s the only thing we want to do right now. We need to be better day by day and game after game. So that’s the only thing we want.
Also, for this tournament, I think we are getting better day by day. So that’s the only thing we want.
Yeah, we are not overthinking, ‘Yeah. We are not good as teammates or we need to find new tricks’ or whatever. We need to find the confidence first, and after that we’re going to find out.
End of Interview
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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