Anything but a victory for Vitality in their next game means that the team led by star player Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut will exit the IEM Rio Major.
If this happens, it will be an unexpected and unprecedented exit as the team is now in the 1-2 pool of Challengers stage. Team Outsiders were able to get 16-12 in their 1-1 pool match played on Tuesday.
ZywOo did give quite a performance in the overpass game, a performance good enough to give a victory, but victory was not meant to be for Vitality. The 21-year-olf was unmatched on the server in terms of his performance.
Unless the whole Vitality team gets up to the level of Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, we may not see the big name on the Legends stage at the IEM Rio Major.
The outsiders were in complete contrast to what the Vitality team was in the game; only Alexey “Qikert” Golubev had negative K/D. The duo of David “n0rb3r7” Danielyan and Petr “fame” Bolyshev had 24 frags individually.
The two players joined the team after PGL Antwerp Major as reinforcements, and they both showed a good level of performance compared to the disappointing display from the superstar team of Vitality led by AWPer.
Meanwhile, the result and performance reflect the struggles of the Vitality team in the first part of the season. The introduction of Spinx to the team changed their trajectory as they went on to win the ESL Pro League season 16.
However, not getting to the Legends stage of the IEM Rio Major will be a new low, but with ZywOo still very much around and with performances like this, Vitality just need one more player to step up to match ZywOo’s output, and they will be back to winning ways.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
