ZywOo at BLAST Open Spring: “If we start to play a bit more shaky, everyone can beat us”

It’s almost time for a repeat of the IEM Katowice finals here at BLAST Open Spring in Lisbon. A couple of days before their semi-finals game against who we now know will be Team Spirit, I caught up with Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut.

How you doing today, ZywOo?

ZywOo: Feeling great. Feeling great. Yeah. Feeling really good. Yeah. After the Copenhagen qualification. Yeah, I think we play really good, so. Yeah, really happy.

Sophie: I mean you are on something of a win streak right now. It kind of feels like you guys are quite unstoppable at the moment. Is that what you’re thinking?

ZywOo: Yeah, I mean, obviously I won’t say unstoppable, but we just play good. Like I feel we just play our own game. We don’t feel like anyone can, like you said, stop us for now. So we just keep grinding, keep going in this way. So obviously for now we are feeling really good.

Sophie: Absolutely. And I guess you’re going to get the crowd buff on Saturday. Is it when you’re playing?

ZywOo: Yeah, Saturday for the semifinal. So we don’t know against who yet, but obviously like we excited to play in front of the crown in Lisbon. Last time we went to the final, yeah, unfortunately we lost against Navi. But this time is different.

Sophie: Absolutely. I mean they’re something else these Portuguese fans, aren’t they? So that’s great.

If you were going to choose one team who could stop you, who do you think it would be at this point?

ZywOo: I mean, there’s many teams. I mean, I feel every team are playing good. I mean, I mean it just on ourselves. I would say if we start to play a bit more shaky, everyone can beat us. So we just need to keep grinding. Obviously, if Mouz can beat us, Spirit can beat us, Eternal Fire can beat us. So all this kind of team, if they play the A game and us, we are being more bit shaky. It can be really risky for us. So we just need to keep our level really high.

Sophie: That’s it.

How do you stop that confidence just really running away and getting overconfident? How are you in the server?

ZywOo: I think it’s just we talk a lot outside of the server and we know we want to keep this energy, like this mood, never be stopped, kind of. So we just want to have this feeling every time, every day, like every game. So we have talk, we know what we need to be good. So we need to bring that every time on the table to know doing this game, we’re going to do it.

Sophie :Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think apEX is pretty consistent with his enthusiasm, shall we say.

ZywOo: I think everyone actually right now in this team, everyone is like giving everything to him. So it’s really good to have this feeling that to know you can do a mistake one, one. But you know that the focus behind you is gonna do the job. So it’s really good feeling to have this.

Soph: Yeah, absolutely. Because I guess one thing I was interested in is you’re playing a lot of like repeat finals at the moment. There was Mouz. You’re probably gonna repeat the Kato finals.

Does that affect like your preparation, your attitude or are you keeping it pretty consistent?

ZywOo: I think we try to keep consistent. Obviously we play a lot more like I think the last seven games we played them three. Three times already.

Sophie: Yes.

ZywOo: I mean we played them in final Katowice. But obviously for us we a bit annoying to always prepare the same guy because we kind of know who’s gonna play. But yeah, we need to change also like small thing during the game. Like we know like they also watch us a lot. So that’s also like mad game now. Yeah, all the team like oh we’re gonna play. Oh we’re gonna manage to. To follow the game. So obviously we are prepared for that.

Soph: Yeah, I guess because you guys are playing a lot at the moment. It’s a lot of tournaments.

Are you getting a touch of burnout or anything?

ZywOo: I would say no. Because obviously in our situation it’s easier to say that when you’re winning. It’s always good when you’re winning the burnout is not there. But when you start losing maybe it’s going to be more there. But for now I don’t feel anyone like having a burnout. Obviously it’s a bit tough in our mindset to always like traveling like yeah, for a month now we are like we are out of our house. So obviously just mindset. We just need to have good rest, good feeling as well. So after that we’re gonna be good.

Sophie: Absolutely. Because I guess now you’re even traveling during events like between Copenhagen and Lisbon. So how has that affected it? Did you like having the couple of days off break?

ZywOo: Of course. It’s always better to have some like some day off some. So. But whenever you need to do the job you have to. So for us like we were ready to travel one month. So actually I don’t feel anyone like inside of the team like bringing carrier or anything because we know we need to do the job until the end. And we didn’t went to semi-final just to stop now. So we just need to give like two games and that’s it. The travel is over. So we’re gonna do our best for that.

Sophie: That is such a good way of looking at it. It’s just two games.

ZywOo: Yeah, that’s it. Ten games before. Now it’s only two. So it’s good.

Sophie: Exactly. Okay, cool.

Have you guys had chance to do anything outside of the game during this tournament? Any sightseeing, maybe?

Zywoo: Yeah, we’re gonna see the city. I mean, we already see it, like, three years ago, but I think we’re gonna see more and more. So, yeah, maybe gonna see. We’re gonna do, like, some team activities. Some. Let’s see, I don’t know yet what the staff did for us, but we’re gonna. I think we must do something.

Sophie: Okay, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

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