French team Vitality recently announced that the contract of its most famous player, Matthew «ZywOo» Erbo, will be extended until 2024. Portraits of the player were broadcast on famous Parisian landmarks in honor of the event.
Team manager and co-founder Fabien «Neo» David said that the conclusion of this four-year contract required negotiations with the player's agent, which dragged on for more than six months. At the same time David evaluates the cooperation with ZywOo very positively: «The opposite side is happy to participate in our project, and we are happy to have the best player in the world – I have nothing to complain about here! I'm glad we understand each other». In an interview with HLTV Neo explained why he values his contract with ZywOo so much and how the team came to its current state.
Matthew Erbo came to Vitality when he was still a rookie – David recalls that due to inexperience, the player initially asked for a much lower amount than they expected to pay him. According to Neo, they discerned its potential even then and saw its willingness to develop.
In early 2020, the team ran into difficulties before the coronavirus pandemic even began. After a disappointing performance at BLAST Premier Spring and IEM Katowice, one of the players left Vitality and they had to adapt to playing with a new squad. Neo believes that it is still necessary to analyze the past year, but it is already possible to say that there were more successes than failures for the team. He expects ZywOo and the rest of the players to be successful in 2021, overcoming new challenges.
