ZywOo: “It’s crazy to say it’s been a while for us to win a trophy”

Vitality’s return to the top in Barcelona carried a sense of relief for Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. After powering his team past FURIA and Aurora on the same day, the French AWPer left StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2026 with the trophy, a 1.50 tournament rating and the 33rd MVP award of his career.

The title ended a barren stretch that dated back to BLAST Rivals on May 3. Three months without a trophy would be an ordinary interval for most teams; for a Vitality lineup accustomed to setting the pace, it had become evidence of a visible dip. Their form had been disrupted further by William “mezii” Merriman’s parental leave, while a disappointing campaign in Porto prompted the players to address problems that went beyond tactics.

“It feels good and feels like a release a bit to have this MVP,” ZywOo told HLTV after the final. “I wanted at least one MVP for the second part of the season, just to be a bit more confident, and to also win a trophy.”

The individual award was emphatic. ZywOo finished 0.24 rating points ahead of the event’s next-best player, KSCERATO, and led the tournament in rating, ADR, kills per round, deaths per round and Round Swing. Yet his first reaction was to share the credit.

“It’s not only me,” he said. “I think the team played well, so I just need to say thanks to them also.”

A difficult summer led to an honest reset

ZywOo traced Vitality’s improvement to conversations held after their previous event in Porto. Rather than framing the turnaround as a sudden tactical breakthrough, he described a reset in how the players understood one another and approached competition.

“After the last tournament in Porto, we had a talk individually with almost everyone just to know what our feelings were,” he explained. “I think we all feel better and more confident, knowing more about each other — what they think about the game and what they think about each other as well.”

For ZywOo, that clarity reduced stress and made the team’s expectations easier to understand both inside and outside the server. He stopped short of calling it a question of maturity, instead presenting it as a return to professional discipline: knowing when to focus, how to respond when the level drops and what each player needs from the group.

The effect was visible throughout StarSeries. Vitality reached the upper final after a convincing win over FURIA, then recovered from their first defeat of the tournament to beat the Brazilians again in the consolidation final. That result sent them into an immediate best-of-five rematch with Aurora, leaving no meaningful recovery time between the day’s two series.

Vitality corrected their Aurora loss overnight

Aurora had exposed Vitality’s passive T sides in the upper final, particularly on Anubis. Vitality managed no attacking rounds on the map in a 13-7 defeat and returned to the same matchup less than 24 hours later with the title at stake.

The response was decisive. Vitality opened the grand final with a 13-4 win on Anubis, taking a 9-3 halftime advantage before closing the map comfortably on the attack. ZywOo said the adjustment was as much about initiative as preparation.

“Today, what changed is our T side was way better,” he said. “Yesterday we played too passive. We were just waiting for them to do things. They didn’t do anything, and we were just, ‘Okay, now what do we do?’”

Vitality reviewed the previous defeat, corrected their spacing and played with substantially more conviction. ZywOo acknowledged that Anubis was still a work in progress, but the rematch showed what the map could look like when all five players moved with the same idea.

“It’s not our best map and we’re working a lot on it, but we know we can be really good on this map when we play together and when we know what to do,” he said.

Aurora answered on Inferno, edging the map 13-11, but the series turned sharply after that. ZywOo took control of Mirage with a 2.01 rating as Vitality won 13-4, then helped close Cache 13-7. Across the four-map final, he amassed 71 kills against 44 deaths, averaged 95.3 damage per round and recorded an 80.8% KAST. His impact also came at the start of rounds: he posted 12 opening kills and eight opening deaths while adding 19 AWP kills.

Those figures make his comments about renewed confidence more than post-match optimism. His 1.51 final rating was marginally above his already exceptional event average, and his decision-making on Mirage and Cache reflected a player willing to seize space rather than wait for the series to come to him.

Six maps, two series and no attempt to conserve energy

Vitality’s route to the trophy demanded six maps across two elimination series on Sunday. A full-distance consolidation final followed by a five-map grand final could have produced as many as eight maps, but ZywOo said the team approached the day expecting the longest possible schedule.

“Everyone was ready to play eight maps already,” he said. “We could play eight or nine hours in a row, and we were ready to fight at any moment.”

That preparation shaped Vitality’s mentality. There was no attempt to ration energy or protect a lead with passive Counter-Strike. They swept FURIA 2-0 and, after Aurora levelled the final, won the last two maps by a combined 26-11.

The broader team contribution also mattered. flameZ, ropz and mezii all finished the grand final above a 1.15 rating, giving Vitality enough firepower to punish Aurora when their stars faded. For mezii in particular, the performance marked a productive return to the lineup: he posted a 1.18 rating in the final and helped drive the opening Anubis with an outstanding first half.

“This tournament showed we’re still one of the best teams”

The trophy did not erase every concern from Vitality’s summer. They still lost to Aurora earlier in the weekend, and ZywOo openly acknowledged that the team can suffer performance drops. What Barcelona supplied was proof that they could diagnose a defeat, adjust quickly and survive a demanding lower-bracket route with their full lineup restored.

“People are saying maybe — not that we are done — but maybe we are done, we’re not going to win anymore because we don’t play the same,” ZywOo said. “But I think this tournament showed we’re still one of the best teams.”

His own performance made that argument difficult to dismiss. The 1.50 event rating was his best since IEM Krakow earlier in the year, while his 92.2 ADR and 0.89 kills per round both led the field. He also finished first for survivability at 0.57 deaths per round, an especially valuable trait for a primary AWPer asked to provide both opening pressure and late-round conversion.

The medal extended ZywOo’s career record to 33 MVP awards, including 26 at Big Events. This one was his first of the season’s second half and arrived at an important point in Vitality’s calendar.

“It’s been three months,” he said. “It’s crazy to say it’s been a while for us to win a trophy, but we’re happy for that.”

The Major remains the real target

Vitality’s next scheduled test is ESL Pro League, followed by Bucharest, where ZywOo said the team will again play with jL. That temporary change means Barcelona cannot simply be treated as the finished version of the team, particularly with the Singapore Major serving as their priority.

ZywOo’s message was therefore measured despite the trophy. Vitality intend to return to practice, review the errors that remained in Barcelona and use the coming events to build toward the Major rather than treating StarSeries as proof that every issue has been solved.

“It doesn’t matter if we won this one,” he said. “We want to improve again and improve every day. Our main focus is the Major.”

Barcelona restored the results and the confidence. The next phase will show whether Vitality can carry both through another roster interruption and into the tournament that matters most.