Vitality Neo interview: Free transfers, how ZywOo helped sign ropz, and starting fresh in 2025

Vitality's Chairman and Co-Founder sat down with HLTV to talk about ropz's blockbuster signing and how the team will bounce back from 2024.

"When you have a player of ZywOo's calibre winning one trophy a year isn't enough."

That's the damning verdict Fabien "Neo" Devide gave on Vitality's 2024 when speaking to us at the HLTV Awards in January.

Part of that thinking led Vitality's Chairman and Co-Owner to opt for a roster change in the French organization. Out went the wantaway Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi, and in came Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool — as good a one-for-one swap you will find.

"We ended up in a situation where Spinx was not happy in Vitality," Neo continues. "For the best interests of the rest of the team, it was better to start a real fresh cycle after 2023. 2024 was also the same core in a way as the Paris Major, the same dynamic, this year it feels like we're starting fresh."

Replacing Spinx, a three-time top 20 player of the year, would be a tough task for any organization. Vitality and Neo can shop off the top shelf, but moving for ropz — a player seemingly wedded both to Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's leadership and to the FaZe brand —, was bold even for them.

"I wish I could say I was a fucking mastermind," Neo says about a tweet from 2022 that recently resurfaced, in which he proposed ropz move to Vitality in 2025.

The truth is less dramatic. "After Shanghai, maybe two or three days after the final, I sent him a text message. Just checking, you know?

"He had a lot of connection with the fans, with the organization, and the players [in FaZe], but he wanted something new in his life, and that's why he chose us. It was a nice surprise that he was that open and, ultimately, he was positive about our project and believed he could benefit from it and probably improve it."

Checking in on ropz came with the knowledge that his contract was due to expire, a trick Vitality have used before in their transfers for Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan, Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen, Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif, and Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen.

In a world of inflated buyouts and with the Esports winter lingering, a model of signing superstars without a fee is one any organization would aim for, but Vitality seem better than most at pulling it off in practice.

"Nobody likes to pay a lot of money to competitors," Neo quips. "On the revenue side, esports is still immature, so we need to be careful.

"When we went for the superteam in 2022, there were a lot of salary expenses and a bit over the market, and then the esports winter happened, with a lot of conflict in the world and the crypto crash. The entire landscape changed, and we were stuck with contracts that were super pricey when the entire landscape shifted."

zonic's departure in 2023 was directly linked to an attempt to correct this, with reports suggesting that Vitality wanted the coach to take a pay cut in his renewal.

This is part of why, as painful as it was in a sporting sense, the departure of Danish duo Magisk and zonic made sense from a financial and future-proofing one for the organization — even if it led to them paying fnatic a buyout for William "⁠mezii⁠" Merriman.

Knowing that ropz's deal was set to expire, however, is just one part of the puzzle. How did they convince him?

Step one was ropz's openness to a move, the fact that he was already attracted to the club. But, for the first time, Vitality were also able to use their most potent weapon: Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut.

"It was the first time ZywOo interacted with a player in the off-season," Neo recalls. "Usually, he trusts the management and coaching staff to make moves, but this time, when I exposed him to the scenarios and priorities, he said, 'Can you give me ropz's number because I would be happy to call him.'

"It's the first time I saw ZywOo being proactive, a leader, truly and genuinely excited about someone. It shows he's growing in a nice way, inside and outside of the server, and I'm sure he was really excited about Robin joining us. It's really promising."

The appeal of joining a project ZywOo is attached to is obvious. He has been a top-three player in all six of his years as a pro.

"We told ZywOo we wanted to create a cycle around him," Neo said in 2020, and they have done just that.

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Vitality Chairman: “We told ZywOo we wanted to create a cycle around him and sign the best players of his generation"

Moves for Magisk and dupreeh were controversial in the French scene — and Neo now wishes he hadn't "blindsided" Kévin "⁠misutaaa⁠" Rabier and Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon with the move —, but it eventually resulted in a Major for ZywOo and Vitality after Spinx was signed and the French core lost for good.

Signing flameZ to replace dupreeh just a few months after that Major was a "really tough human decision," although clearly a correct one given the ten-year age gap, and now with ropz they have signed the first truly established superstar to support ZywOo. It's a marquee move that increases expectations, internally and externally.

Winning their home Major and the team of the year prize at the HLTV Award Show made 2023 a great year for Vitality, but now Neo wants more after a quiet 2024.

"What I want to make sure is that Vitality will be recognized as one of the strongest Counter-Strike teams of all time. We are really far away from teams like NAVI or Astralis, that had an amazing era and have a legacy.

"We are full of humility and want to create this moment and recognition worldwide. So that's why we are working proactively and in the spirit of this industry, to always try and be ambitious to attract talents that will improve the team and contend for titles.

"My own pleasure would be to sit back and relax, have a project set up for the next five years, and just enjoy the show. But it's esports, you know this. You need to work almost all of the time."

With Neo watching on, the new constellation is back in the server and is primed to right a years-long wrong.

Before 2025, ZywOo had only made playoffs at IEM Katowice once, in 2023, where Vitality went out in the quarter-finals. Call it a curse, or a reflection of ZywOo's tendency to start the calendar year slower than he ends it, but 2025 could be the year that changes.

Veteran Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire has won most trophies in Counter-Strike, but the big-eared Katowice trophy has continued to elude him since he first entered the Spodek Arena in 2014.

For Neo, 2024 was a rebuild after the departures of Magisk and zonic, a transitional year. This year cannot be that.

flameZ and mezii have been freed up on CT side — the big problem point for Vitality in 2024 —, both taking some rotators spots from Spinx thanks to ropz's preference for anchor roles.

On T side, ropz can add more aggression to some lurker positions and has already impressed the team with his professionalism.

"As soon as ropz joined the team we could feel the chemistry," mezii told the BLAST Bounty stream. "He fits really well in the server and outside the server. You always have the honeymoon phase but it feels really different at the moment, everyone's on the same page."

Neo's blueprint is ready and Vitality can bring it to life in Katowice.

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2025
08/02/2025	Vitality 15:45 The MongolZ	Match

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