ZywOo on Team Vitality: “We can still achieve many victories in the future”

In a new team vlog from the IEM Cologne Major 2026 on the club’s official YouTube channel, Team Vitality members commented on the team’s performance at the event and summed up the season for the roster.
Neo: This obviously isn’t the result you were all hoping for, and of course, it’s very disappointing. Once again, I want to remind you that even though this season is ending this way, we’ve achieved great success on many fronts. And, as I’ve said before, we’ll never underestimate your champion hearts, because you’re damn champions, guys. I have no doubt that you’ll be back, and this defeat will serve as the foundation for something even more spectacular than what you’ve already achieved. We’ll see you again at the event in Paris; I just wanted you to reflect on all of this together, as a group. Because that’s exactly who you are, and that’s what you need to remain.
apEX: At times, we didn’t perform well individually, and at other times, we didn’t perform well as a team. Now we need to move forward and look back only to understand what we need to do to get back to our true level. I really think we were missing a lot, and that’s sad, but that’s life. We’ve won so much together, and I know that if we want to, we’ll keep doing it. I have no doubt about that; we just need to work on our mistakes to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I mean, there will certainly be losses, but if we do everything right, there will be fewer of them. We’re sad right now, but let’s move on and see how we can improve for next season.
flameZ: I thought a lot right after our loss and realized that, in any case, this season was incredibly tough in that we played a lot of events one after another. I believe we prepared well and did everything necessary to put on a solid performance at this Major, but it didn’t work out for us. Ultimately, I think it’s all for the best. Sometimes you have to lose in order to win even more in the future. Of course, this is a major setback, but things aren’t the same now as they were in 2024, when we lost everything we possibly could. In any case, I’m very proud of each and every one of you, and I think we had the right mindset, preparation, and everything else—we just fell a bit short in terms of individual skill.
ZywOo: I agree with mezii that we need to keep believing in ourselves and that next season will be ours. If we keep training and working hard, I have no doubt that this team is capable of winning many more trophies. We lost today—that’s life—but we can still achieve many victories in the future.
ropz: I’ll say it again: I think it’s normal to make mistakes—we’re all human—but today there were just too many of them. Of course, Team Falcons made mistakes too, and I wouldn’t say they played well; we could very well have won. It’s sad, no doubt about it—we really wanted to win this tournament, so the result is totally disappointing, but we’ll still come out on top at the next one, so… To hell with this one.
At the IEM Cologne Major 2026, Dan “apEX” Madeskler’s team lost to Team Falcons in the event’s quarterfinal match in a best-of-3 series and was eliminated from the championship, finishing in 5th–8th place and earning $45,000 in prize money.
Photo by Stephanie Lindgren, BLAST.


