For those who didn’t follow the 1.6 scene, you’re a former French top player who played for eSports-eu and *aAa*. Could you quickly introduce yourself and come back on your career as a player?

You were very interested in the coaching methods in football, in the mindset and the differents view about it. Did you highlight this academic experience to the players to promote yourself?

What did you have in mind about being a coach on CS:GO? Were you surprised about some aspects of it? Which ones?

I wasn’t particularly surprised by anything. All I know is that it’s a job where you need to adapt differently to each situation and to each player. The very “heart” of the job is the same no matter the field in which you work. Other than that, I understand enough about the game to know that I can teach some things to the players. I wouldn’t have come back if that wasn’t the case anyway.

Coaching has become usual in the CS:GO pro scene, everybody would agree that zonic is the best at this position. Are you inspired by other coaches? Have you talked with some of them?

To be honest, I have many inspirations: some are football coaches (Guardiola, Mourinho, Deschamps), some are esport coaches such as zonic on CS, on Zaboutine on LoL, and some are philosophers or writers. I had the opportunity to evolve in an environment where people encourage you to believe one simple idea: that everyone has something to teach to others. For that purpose, you “simply” need to listen around you and find the right information.

Pep Guardiola was an important man behind the success of young Lionel Messi. An inspiration for the ZywOo's coach ?

Arriving this late into CS:GO, what were - or still are - your main lacks about coaching on CS:GO?

That’s the rule and you have to learn to live with it, whether you’re a player, a coach or a manager. If you’re not strong enough to face the pressure (and the criticism), then there’s no need to try to become a pro. In my case, I know that many people are wondering if I’ll be able to handle the pressure knowing that we urgently need to win some titles. But that’s how I like it. More than that, I need this adrenaline to be performant. Some people will be paid to analyse and criticize my work, and I agree with that condition without an ounce of animosity. Bring them on.

How do you manage the possible rivals for your position? Vitality has a lot of resources, a very ambitious team, and there could potentially be many people waiting for you to make a mistake. Is this something you think about sometimes, are you prepared for it?

You simply live with that. Even Zidane and Guardiola will be criticized one day or another, so I’ll be too, without a doubt.

Football and Counter-Strike have in common the fact that each team can have their own playstyle. Some coaches like Klopp wish to please the viewers more than anything, whereas others like Mourinho only think of results, sometimes in spite of entertainment. Do you think that can be found in Counter-Strike?

That’s a good question! I thought about it a lot actually, and I think that each play style on CS can bring some kind of entertainment to the viewers. Obviously I’ll favor Astralis’ rigorous in-game leading, but I also enjoy watching Na’Vi in another style, when they’re at their top form. The only thing I believe is that, in order to win on the long term, Astralis’ style is more viable because it leaves out - a bit more that the others - the players’ individualities to concentrate on team play (even if all five players in this team are real monsters). On the other hand, with Na’Vi, if the star players are not on top form on game day, they won’t make it. Whereas Astralis will always be able to get out of any situation thanks to their knowledge of the game. This kind of comparison was already a thing back in my days with emuLate and Millenium/BURNING. Overall, emuLate was indeed the team that performed best on the international scene.

The “decision-making power” among teams (regarding roster switches, the type of playstyle to adopt etc... ) still seems to be mostly held by the players and the IGL (in a majority of the teams). Do you think coaches will come to take over that task, like in traditional sports, where the coach is the real mastermind of the team?

It’s hard to tell… Once again, I think that’s a very “situational” thing, meaning that you have to adapt to the players you have. For example, I won’t teach CS to NBK or apEX, you have to be very snooty to think that’s possible. On the other hand, if I’m in a subtop team, I might take a more professorial position. Then, everything depends on the relationship you have with your captain. For us, everything is clear : Nathan handles the collective play and I take care of the individual play and the mindset.

NBK - Happy - apEX = 1 Major but so many disappointments

It seems that NBK really wants to become an IGL, and Happy will have to be under his lead and adapt to another style which isn’t his own, despite being a great IGL in the past. However, we know that the success of this team will hugely rely on the relationship between NBK and Happy, which wasn’t always bright the last few years. Do you play a role in maintaining this relationship? If yes, how do you manage to avoid any frustration on each side?

It’s very simple, they are very smart and mature people. So we only talked about the game plan we wanted to set together. Nathan is the leader, Vincent is the one (with Dan) who brings a little more strategy. At the moment, everything is great and I think that period will be very beneficial for both of them.

Happy and RpK are recovering from a few nightmarish months with EnVyUs where nothing went right internally. Have you debriefed this with them? Have you drawn any teachings for the future of Vitality?

Of course… to be honest, I’ve been told a lot about what happened in EnVy. It didn’t surprise me much and more importantly, it allowed me to see something I already knew: people who comment the life of a team from the outside are a light-year away from having all the information needed to make a judgement.

You have the opportunity to be the coach of the biggest upcoming player the French scene has known. But ZywOo remains discreet, enigmatic. How did you approach this character, and how will you try to “preserve” him?

You used the perfect word to explain the situation : “opportunity”. Because today, I consider myself as privileged to stand alongside Mathieu. In my career, I already had the opportunity to be among young players before they stormed into the scene (mainly Blqcko and instanz). And now, I want to see Mathieu in the spotlights, I will do my best to help him during this process. But that’s not where my work stops. Beyond the game itself, I think he has what it takes to become a real top-player: a real education and respect of values. Mathieu is not only a soon to be top-player, he’s more. It’s our job to give him what he needs to be among the stars.

You’ve known teams where the atmosphere was all friendly, namely the players were more than teammates, like real friends in life. It might be more complicated among Vitality though. Is this something you feel is mandatory to succeed over the long term?

I would say that’s something more true now compared to the past. Considering the new generation has differents needs regarding the global atmosphere within the team. But too much friendship without pressure leads to a slower progression. It’s a balance we need to find.

faculty and instanz, a friendship born ingame that still lasts.

Are you also doing some analysis work for this team? If no, is there an open position in the team or will you be doing without one?

For the moment, we decided to not have an analyst. We prefer to see what Nathan and I can build together. We’re not closed to any application but we want to build the structure of a real methodology together.

You will start from scratch: no slot at the Major, nor in the ESL Pro League, nor in the ECS. Have you already established priorities, directives that you agreed on reaching over the short/mid/long term?

Since we want to do something on the long term with this team, starting from ashes isn’t scary, it’s the opposite, I think that’s something really interesting for the team, this must teach us humility. It is necessary to start a new journey from the bottom to reach our goals. Great teams are born in hard work and in difficulty, then in the notion of sacrifice. Now we have to do things right.

A football trainer often needs imagination to create new training routines, new ways to pass a clear message to his players. Do you think that CS:GO coaches nowadays have enough tools to fully exploit their whole potential or are there still some frustrating limits?

It’s almost the same thing, this job has the same roots anywhere: you need to know how to vary the trainings to avoid being in a routine that can lead to less desire to learn from your players. In my case, I will be very honest, I couldn’t have had a better partner than Nathan. He’s quite far ahead on a lot of subjects for his age. During my career of journalist and player, I had the privilege to be alongside huge champions in a lot of different fields. I have the absolute belief that Nathan is this kind of guy. He understands what matters: to be a good leader, you must be interested in other things than the game and you must develop yourself intellectually. Together, we try to adapt the “Anthropological planning” (used in football in particular) to CS. This means that we have to continually look for what to learn from our trainings. Repeating strats on a server for hours doesn’t interest me at all. I want us to go further, much further.

Apart from apEX, it seems that no one of your players are really interested in football. Doesn’t that bother you? :D 

(laughs) No, no… I think that’s actually preferable, as we monopolize the Teamspeak enough already :D But more seriously, we really have a passionate team, and that’s what makes me really happy every time I join my players before practice. We take time to talk, discuss about our common interests, and I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything else.

Any last words ?

First, thank you for the interview. Then, I’d like to thank all the people from Vitality who allowed this project to become real. Especially Fabien (ed. Fabien ‘Neo’ Devide, Head of Vitality) and Nicolas (ed. Nicolas Maurer, CEO of Vitality). Everyone knew Vitality wanted to join the CS scene for a while, and the dream came true! Now, I only wonder what we need to offer to our fans to allow them to rejoice again after a complicated period for the French CS scene. Be sure that we won’t be asking for more time, but only to give the best of ourselves. Thanks also to Nathan Laprade for supporting me since the start of the project.