ZywOo: "When I play in front of the French crowd it will be the best feeling"

The French star put up a 1.38 rating in the Legends Stage to help Vitality go 3-0 and straight into the playoffs.

Vitality have punched their ticket to the playoffs at the organization's home Major in Paris. The Franco-Danish squad did so cleanly, too, with no losses and three victories over G2, ENCE and Monte. The team's star, Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, turned up in fine form and posted a 1.38 rating across the four maps played.

The AWPer, who already posted a play-of-the-tournament contender with a spectacular 1vs4 afterplant clutch on the CT side of Nuke, took some time after his team's 2-0 victory over Monte to talk about the team's great form and the excitement of getting to play in front of his home crowd come the playoffs at the Accor Arena.

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You made it to the Accor Arena. That was what everybody was hoping for, a French team playing in front of a French crowd at the last Major. Tell me what that means for you.

It means a lot, obviously. We prepared for this tournament for six months now and our main goal was to play in front of the French scene. It's the best feeling in my life right now, or maybe not yet, but whenever I play in front of them it will be the best feeling. No one expected us to go 3-0 and win everything, so right now it's the best feeling. Now we'll just take some time, rest, chill, and think about what we're going to do for the quarter-final.

You played G2, ENCE and Monte. Strong teams to get through in this Legends Stage. How was it for you making it through cleanly, how strong are you as a team right now?

Right now we can beat anyone. If you want to win the Major, if you want to go far, you have to beat the top teams. We're not thinking about Monte as top 20 or top 30, it's like playing FaZe, NAVI, Heroic, we have the same mindset and we prepared the same for G2 and Monte. We don't do something else, we just prepare the same, we don't change anything. We have good preparation, we talk about what we're going to do, and for us, if we want to go far, we have to beat the top teams.

A lot of the teams expected to be some of the strongest here have been struggling against teams that are theoretically smaller. What is it you've been able to do to not let anything bother you and just charge through to the playoffs?

I feel like the the smaller teams want it more than the big teams. Maybe because it's the last Major, but yeah, in my opinion like, Into The Breach, Monte, GamerLegion, they want it more than G2 or FaZe, that's why they lost. You can feel when they're playing, they scream, they're really enjoying it. That's the best part about it, I think that's why the biggest teams are struggling right now.

You talk about enjoyment. For you, how have you found this joy?

It was tough to enjoy because we had tough matches against G2, ENCE, and now Monte, but I think we still enjoy it. We smile, we make jokes during the game, and we try to enjoy it as much as possible because we know there's some stress, some pressure around us, because it's Paris. So we try just to have confidence and not feel it with some jokes, some smiles, and I think we did great in this tournament.

The sky is the limit. You come from winning a tournament, you're 3-0 now. How high is your confidence going into the playoffs?

We have high confidence, obviously, but the job is not done. Just because we went 3-0, we can't think it's going to be easy against FaZe, or whoever. We just need to keep our plan because for the moment we're playing well, as a team and also individually, everyone is popping up. We just have to keep in the same way for the quarter-final, I don't think we'll change anything. We have momentum and confidence right now.

Moments like these are when every team wants to be peaking and at their best. Do you think we're seeing Vitality there?

We have a great peak right now because yeah, like I said at the beginning of the interview, we have been preparing for this tournament for six months. Our goal was to reach our top level for the Major and I think that right now... We can obviously do better because we still make mistakes, but we're a strong team right now. I think we can beat anyone.