Team Vitality’s performance coach: “flameZ is an incredible person who always puts the team first.”

When I look back, I realize how incredibly lucky I was to join this team. I didn’t fully grasp the magnitude of what Team Vitality actually was in CS. You know, before the interviews and everything else, I did my research. I knew they’d won the Major in Paris. I think they’d won three other trophies before that. I knew about zonic’s success with Astralis. I knew that apEX had been in the game for a long time, but I really didn’t understand what Vitality actually represented in CS. And, obviously, what it represents now is very different from what it represented back then. 

I can highlight a couple of lessons I learned in 2024. One of them is that we probably got a little ahead of ourselves and prioritized results over the process. It was very important to us that we were now going to win a ton of trophies, build on our excellent 2023 season, and cement that legacy—that era—in 2024. It’s tough when there have been significant changes to the roster, even though the key players—apEX and ZywOo—were still there. XTQZZZ came back, I joined the team, mezii joined the team, and let’s not forget that flameZ had joined just a couple of months earlier. So, I guess you learn these lessons and think, “How would you do things differently next time?” But the thing is, you’ll never be back in exactly the same situation again. So, if I could go back in time, I’d probably try to place a much greater emphasis on the process, on our teamwork, and on all the things that form the foundation of success.

We wouldn’t have achieved this success without apEX’s genius as a captain and leader, or without ZywOo’s natural talent and simply insane in-game instincts. flameZ is an incredible person who always puts the team first and excels in his role. mezii is the best teammate you’ll ever meet, and he’s far more talented than many people realize because he doesn’t get many opportunities to showcase his skills. And ropz is simply a Counter-Strike genius. So I don’t want this to sound like we’re just talking about minor, one-percent improvements to try to bring out the best possible version of these five players together. But if you don’t have these five players, you won’t achieve what we achieved in 2025.