ZywOo and Vitality: Four Player of the Year Titles and a French Dynasty
Three Majors, three Major MVPs and a record fourth HLTV crown. How Mathieu Herbaut and the Paris club built Counter-Strike's most successful team of the CS2 era, and what Cologne taught them.
In October 2018, a French club with no Major titles signed a 17-year-old AWPer most fans outside France had never seen play. Seven years later he had won more Major MVP awards than anyone in history. Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut turned 26 on November 9, 2026, and he heads to the PGL Singapore Major in a few days as the man everyone else is measured against.
His club, Team Vitality, won both Majors of 2025, completed a second ESL Grand Slam in 2026, and finished third in the Esports World Cup Club Championship in Paris this summer. Here is how the partnership was built.
The club behind the player
Team Vitality was founded on August 5, 2013, by Fabien "Neo" Devide, Nicolas Maurer, Corentin "Gotaga" Houssein and Kevin "BrokyBrawks" Georges. Devide is chairman and Maurer chief executive. Since November 2019 its headquarters has been the V.Hive on Paris's Boulevard de Sébastopol, a space of about 1,000 square metres with a shop, meeting areas and a gaming café, and the team trains at a performance centre at the Stade de France.
Vitality plays far beyond Counter-Strike, with teams in League of Legends, Valorant, Rocket League, EA Sports FC, StarCraft II, Tekken, Street Fighter 6 and several mobile games. But CS has always been its flagship.
The rise of ZywOo
ZywOo announced himself almost at once. In 2019, his first full year, HLTV named him the world's best player at 19, the second-youngest winner ever. He kept the title in 2020, finished second in 2021 and 2022, and became number one again in 2023.
That year Vitality finally won its first Major, sweeping GamerLegion 2-0 at the BLAST Paris Major in the Accor Arena, the last Major of the CS:GO era. ZywOo was MVP.
2025: the perfect season
In January 2025, Vitality signed Estonian rifler Robin "ropz" Kool to join apEX, ZywOo, flameZ and mezii. What followed was one of the most dominant runs in the game's history. In the first half of the year Vitality won seven of eight events, including IEM Katowice, ESL Pro League Season 21, BLAST Open Lisbon, IEM Melbourne, IEM Dallas and the BLAST.tv Austin Major. IEM Melbourne completed the ESL Grand Slam, and the team stretched its LAN winning streak to 30 matches.
ZywOo was MVP at seven of those events, all big ones. His eight MVPs across 2025 matched s1mple's single-season record from 2021. In December, Vitality added the StarLadder Budapest Major, beating FaZe 3-1, and ZywOo became the first player to win three Major MVPs. The season ended with Vitality named Esports Team of the Year at the Esports Awards and Best Esports Team at The Game Awards 2025, while ZywOo took PC Player of the Year and his fourth HLTV crown, holding off Team Spirit's donk.
2026: trophies, then a lesson
Vitality opened 2026 with a semifinal loss to Falcons at BLAST Bounty Winter, then won IEM Kraków, beating FURIA in the final. It followed with PGL Cluj-Napoca (3-0 over PARIVISION), BLAST Open Rotterdam (3-0 over Natus Vincere) and IEM Rio (3-0 over Team Spirit), the last of which secured the club's second ESL Grand Slam. ZywOo's 1.59 rating at Kraków was his best ever at a big event.
Then came Cologne. At the IEM Cologne Major in June, chasing a third straight Major, Vitality lost 2-1 to Team Falcons in the quarterfinals. Captain apEX was seen in tears as he left the stage. At the Esports World Cup in August, Team Spirit ended a two-year losing streak against Vitality on its way to the title.
The response has been familiar: more trophies. ZywOo was MVP at the BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 1 finals and again at StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2026 in September, both won by Vitality.
Why it matters
Great Counter-Strike teams usually last two or three years. Vitality has been at or near the top since 2023, and in ZywOo it has a player who has been in HLTV's top three every year since 2019. That kind of consistency is rare in a sport where rosters change every off-season.
For Singapore, the question is whether Cologne was a blip or a warning. Vitality arrive seeded straight into Stage 3, and ZywOo's autumn MVPs suggest the hunger is intact. Our Singapore preview has the full field, and our donk profile covers the rival who wants his crown.