At the beginning of 2020, it was not a successful time for Vitality as the French team did not achieve good results at the two LAN tournaments they participated in: BLAST Premier Spring Series (finishing 3rd in Group B and will have to compete in the Showdown in June) and IEM Katowice 2020 (finishing 7-9). The members of Vitality were not in their best form, while ZywOo – the best player in the world in 2019 – showed signs of being read and could not perform well in recent matches.
Earlier in March, ALEX’s IGL unexpectedly announced his departure from the team and will cease professional play in the near future. Explaining this decision, ALEX shared that he felt exhausted after a long period of continuous competition and could not reach an agreement with the organization regarding the scheduling for 2020. This is certainly a significant loss for Vitality as ALEX was the one who connected and built the team into a united unit, elevating Vitality to a top team in the world.
In an interview yesterday with the French news site 1pv.fr, coach XTQZZZ of the team shared his thoughts on the team’s situation as well as ALEX’s decision and ZywOo’s recent performance, the star of the team.
First regarding ALEX’s departure, he shared: “We had guessed this decision from ALEX and tried to motivate and create conditions for him to continue playing, but you cannot force someone to keep playing forever. ALEX has pursued this path for many years and like Dan (apEX), he has sacrificed a lot. I feel like I failed to motivate him.”
XTQZZZ also commented on the newest member of the team, misutaaa, and the changes in the team’s playstyle.
“After ALEX left, we only had 3 days to find a replacement (the deadline for registering the roster for the ESL Pro League) and everyone decided to choose misutaaa. We went to his house and talked to his parents before signing the contract; he will go to school in the morning and practice with the team in the afternoon. In CT, misutaaa will play the bombsite anchor position, while in T he will play as a lurker or go with the team for trades, similar to what shox is doing now.[…] The results of the practice sessions have not been great, but misutaaa performed well yesterday; he is a skilled clutch player and that is something we really need.”
“I decided to promote apEX to IGL; in terms of motivation and knowledge, he is a reasonable choice. […] As for the incompatibility between apEX and shox, since shox returned, everything has been fine; they are working together very harmoniously. Since shox returned to the team, he has been practicing extremely hard, but still lacks a little something.”
Finally, XTQZZZ made some comments about ZywOo and the recent performance of this 19-year-old prodigy.
“I am extremely proud of him. Despite being the best player in the world, ZywOo remains unchanged; he always respects everyone. Regarding ZywOo’s recent performance, the rumors are all incorrect; at IEM Katowice he was sick and did not perform at his best. On the other hand, he still managed to achieve a 1.22 rating even while playing ‘poorly’.”
“Recently, ZywOo has had to do too many interviews or deal with what people say about the competition with S1mple,… he does not like them at all. He is only 19 years old and has already had to endure so much pressure.”
Finally, XTQZZZ confirmed that their goal in the near future will be to maintain their position in the top 10 and make it to the playoff stage of the upcoming Major ESL One Rio.
Vitality is currently competing in Group A of the ESL Pro League Season 11, and matches for this tournament will take place every evening and will be commented live in Vietnamese on the Youtube channel of 500Bros.