ZywOo: "I had never played this kind of final"

The French superstar said Vitality needed the boost from this win after losses in Dallas and EPL and added they "have so much more to bring to the table."

Vitality emerged victorious from a thriller of a best-of-five grand final at IEM Cologne, taking down Natus Vincere in the nearly 120-round title decider to secure their first trophy of the year.

Read more

Vitality win IEM Cologne 2024 over NAVI after nail-biting 117-round final

Consistent as always and putting on a team-high 1.31 rating in the overtime-filled grand final affair, Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut came away with the HLTV Most Valuable Player Award.

After the match, the French superstar spoke with HLTV about the victory and finally getting to the top step of the podium after two failed attempts.

"It was an amazing final to play," he said. "I had never played this kind of final, and finally we won it. We really needed it after the losses in Dallas and EPL."

ZywOo overtook Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz for the second-most HLTV MVPs and is now just one away from tying Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev's 21 medals.

But when asked about the chance to break that record at a time when the Ukrainian doesn't seem to be making a comeback anytime soon, ZywOo was humble as always: "I'm thinking about that, but at the same time, I don't care," he said. "I'm not thinking about getting an MVP every time I play a tournament."

---

Congratulations on your victory. A crazy series with some really close games. What is going through your head?

Ah, a lot of things. Now the pressure is going down. It was an amazing final to play, to be honest. I had never played this kind of final, and finally we won it. Yeah, amazing. It's tough to say something because the pressure is going down. We're just happy. Everyone is smiling now and it's amazing. I just want to thank my teammates because they played really well as well. It was a great final.

Before the match, you had said you needed to play your best game to win. Are you happy with the way the team played?

I think we played a good game, but it could have been way better. It's the final, so there's a lot more pressure on the table. Sometimes, we didn't play our game. But in the end, we won. Obviously, we're going to watch the match and talk about the mistakes we made. But in the end, we won, and we are just so happy with the results.

This is your first trophy of 2024 after losing two finals. How does it feel to finally lift a trophy this year?

We had kind of a joke. It was, like, 'If we win Cologne, we're just going to forget about Dallas and EPL.' And now, after winning Cologne, we're just going to enjoy. Our goal this year was to lift one trophy at least, and we've done it. We are happy, and we're just going to enjoy it now.

apEX had been to two finals here in Cologne. He said in an interview with us that he really wanted to win this tournament or Katowice before he retires. Are you happy that you guys managed to win this one for him?

Yeah, of course. We're obviously happy for him. Like he said in the interview, he wanted to win Cologne or a Major. I think we didn't really talk about that, but everyone did it for him. Everyone was really focused, working really hard before the second season. We were really prepared and we were focused on that. apEX, us, the team, we were ready to fight.

You had the support of the Golden Hornets here, but it felt like most of the crowd was cheering for NAVI. What was it like to play against the crowd here?

Actually, I didn't feel the crowd was favoring NAVI or anything because we were too focused and the Golden Hornets were on our side and gave us a lot of power and energy. So I didn't feel this. The Golden Hornets gave us everything and we're just going to enjoy this tonight with them and have a good drink.

You had a massive lead now on Inferno but you took some time to close it out. It seemed like you were getting a little bit frustrated until that massive round from mezii. Why do you think that it took you so long to close it out? Do you think that maybe you were trying to hurry things up a little bit?

Yeah, a bit. Maybe we took it too easy because we were leading 11-2 and we were maybe thinking that we had already won. But I didn't feel any frustration, I just felt that we were maybe playing a bit more scared or not together because we wanted to finish the game. But some players were talking during the game to say, like, 'Just take your time, we know what we can do during the game.' And we just finished it in a good way.

You now have 20 MVP medals, the second-most overall, and you're just one behind s1mple. How does that make you feel, and do you think it's possible to beat s1mple this year?

Maybe. I mean, if I have another MVP, I will be on the same level. To be honest, I'm thinking about that, but at the same time, I don't care. It's weird because I'm not thinking about getting an MVP every time I play a tournament. Obviously, the last day [of the tournament] I'm thinking about it, but when I am with the team, I'm not thinking about that. I'm just doing my thing, playing with my team. That's it.

We are now entering a very busy period of the season. We have the BLAST Finals, IEM Rio and, of course, the Major. How big of a boost is this victory for the team?

To be honest, it's going to be a good boost because we really needed it after the losses in Dallas and EPL. We have so much more to bring to the table. We know we made some mistakes. We have so much to improve and we can do so much better. So it's going to be a good momentum boost for the rest of the year. And hopefully, we'll lift another trophy.