mezii: "When ZywOo gets this ace at the start, you're like, 'It's going to be tough for them'"

The British player praised his team's mentality after they breezed past FURIA in their opening group match.

Vitality got off to a flying start at IEM Cologne 2024 as they made light work of FURIA in a 2-0 series that they were in control of from the get-go.

The Brazilians were crushed in every department, with Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut setting the tone for a quick victory with a stunning ace in the opening round. "When I see ZywOo just pop off with five kills, it's like, I know it's going to be a tough day for the other team," William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman told HLTV after the match.

After an upset-filled opening day, mezii was pleased that his team displayed the right mentality in their first match in Cologne. As Vitality chase their first trophy of 2024, he said that winning this event would ease some of the pain from their losses this year. "It's one of the tournaments that every professional wants to win and it's one of the big ones," he said. "So it's definitely one of our goals to do this."

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A 2-0 victory in your first match of the tournament. It was kind of the perfect start, the dream start to the tournament. Did you expect it to be this easy?

No, you can't ever expect it to be easy. I think, especially for us, we put a real focus on being able to start strongly in the tournament, in the first game, because in past tournaments we've kind of struggled with this, and I think today we just made sure that we give the energy that we need to give from the start.

We've already seen a lot of the underdogs winning their matchups and we didn't want to be that team that's also going to lose, so we gave everything today. I'm happy with how we played today.

Life gets a lot easier when ZywOo is having a good day. And that first round on Inferno was a sign that he was going to have a good day.

Yeah, I mean, I was on the other bombsite, but when I see ZywOo just pop off with five kills, it's like, I know it's going to be a tough day for the other team. Even without this start, he's the best player in the world and when he gets this ace at the start, you're, like, 'It's going to be tough for them.'

You didn't have the best of starts to the season. It was a little bit rough at the EWC and then, at the BLAST Fall Groups, you also struggled a little bit, especially in the game against GamerLegion. What was the mindset heading into the event?

I think the same as always, just trusting the process and the preparation that we've done. We put in a lot of work after the player break, whether that's individually or as a team. And I think, even for me, I know I've shown some good games and good glimpses of what I can do. It's just about focusing more on that and kind of bringing the confidence and the energy to all these games. I can definitely do it. It's just about doing it more consistently.

You had some deep runs during the previous season, but for some reason, you couldn't take the final step. This has led to some suggestions that maybe the team could switch some roles around to try to shake things up. Has this been discussed internally? Is this something that you're considering?

Not really. For us, it's never been too much on these things in-game. We're a team that needs to make sure we're bringing this high energy to the games, and I think that's what we're trying to do.

Even last season, when we made these deep runs, it was so close in a few of those finals where we could have gone all the way and taken the trophy, but sometimes it doesn't happen. That's the way CS goes, and sometimes you can't think too deeply about things.

And, of course, there are always adjustments we make, but not exactly positional. I think it was just more about learning from our mistakes and learning from these games because that's the main thing. We definitely made a lot of new things and adjustments, which are helping us now, and I think practice and preparation have been going really well. That's the main thing.

You're now going up against FaZe, a team that is going through a tough spell. What are your expectations heading into this match?

They looked good in their first matchup, so that's always one thing. For us, it's just making sure that we can really focus… It's another challenge, it's a new game, and like I said, we can't focus too much on their struggles. I think we've also had struggles as well, so it's just about focusing on one game at a time.

We know what FaZe can do, they've got the individuals, and they're a team that has won multiple tournaments. So for us, it's just focusing on FaZe. We know they can be strong, [we have to] just give all we can and perform the way we did in this opening game and the way we've been doing in practice.

We've seen some favorites falter here in Cologne. G2 and Spirit dropped down to the lower bracket, and one of them is going out today. It seems like Cologne is going to be an open race. What do you think that means for your chances here at the tournament?

To be honest, it's not something we focus too much on. If it's a lower-ranked team or a high-ranked team that we could be going up against next or whether it's in the playoffs… We've made mistakes in the past where we were kind of focusing too much on opponents or who we could be playing in two games' time.

For us, it's just about focusing on one game at a time, and that's why I'm really happy today. We focused on our first challenge, got over that obstacle, and we can go into the next one against FaZe.

Like I said, there are a lot of underdogs winning here. And maybe that's a mistake of the other teams where they're kind of underestimating, or maybe they're not fully ready for that first game.

We just want to make sure that whoever we play, whether it's a Spirit, a FaZe, or a MOUZ, whoever it is, that we treat everyone the same way. As we've seen, anyone can beat anyone, and on the day, we just need to bring high energy.

flameZ said in the pre-match interview that winning Cologne is the main goal. Do you agree with him? Do you think that if you manage to go all the way here, it will take away some of the pain from some of the losses that you've had this year?

Cologne is a different beast. It's a completely different tournament than everything else. Of course, it feels bad when we lose these finals at the start of the season, and we felt we could have taken some of them.

Of course, the goal is to win Cologne, it's one of the biggest tournaments, so if we can win this one, it does take away some of it, of course not everything. It's one of the tournaments that every professional wants to win and it's one of the big ones, so it's definitely one of our goals to do this.