Zywoo

Biography

Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut (born November 9, 2000) is a French professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player who plays for Team Vitality as the AWPer. He is widely considered as one of the best CS:GO players in the world ever since his breakthrough in late 2018.

He started playing at age 7 with his brother, but was only allowed to play for less than an hour per day by his mother. After becoming a teenager, he still never "played in the middle of the night" or "did 4-5 hour sessions", his family always keeping an eye on what he was doing.His mother also encouraged him to get into video games, and from time to time even played with him. But before allowing him to participate in esports, she demanded that he first finish his secondary education and acquire his baccalauréat, which he did.

Timeline

2021

Was named the MVP of IEM Winter 2021 by HLTV.

2020

Was named the MVP of BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 European Finals by HLTV.

Was named the MVP of ESL One: Cologne 2020 Online - Europe by HLTV.

Was named the MVP of DreamHack Open Fall 2020 by HLTV.

Was named the MVP of IEM XV - Beijing Online: Europe by HLTV.

Was named the MVP of BLAST Premier: Fall 2020 by HLTV.

2020

Due to the transition of tournaments to online (due to COVID-19), many tournaments did not take place and were postponed or cancelled. HLTV.org had published the final rankings of the best players in CS:GO for 2020; in which for the second year in a row, the Team Vitality player won the award. Behind him was Natus Vincere's Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev, and Nicolai 'device' Reedtz from Astralis closed out the top three.

2019

The results of ZywOo and his team were not that brilliant in the Majors: as they ended up finishing in 9-11th in Katowice Major 2019 and then a 5-8th place in StarLadder Berlin Major 2019. They still went on to win in two top-tier tournaments of the season, ECS Season 7 Finals and EPICENTER 2019, and finished second twice at ESL One Cologne 2019 and DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019.

Mathieu's individual stats were impressive for that year: he finished MVP 5 times and had a 1.30 overall rating in LAN events. In January 2020, Mathieu Herbaut was voted as the World's Best Player of the Year 2019 by HLTV.org, thus becoming the first French and the youngest player to receive this award since its inception in 2010.

2018

After completing his bachelor's degree, Mathieu was able to take up esports professionally and sign a contract with Team Vitality. The results came quickly, as they won DreamHack Open Atlanta 2018 in November. The next month, he and his team qualified for the minor qualifier for the next Major, Katowice Major 2019. In the Minors, Vitality landed in second place, securing a spot for the Major in Katowice.

November 9, 2000

Zywoo was born in Republic of France.