Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut captured the cover of the new issue of the French L’Équipe — and this is considered a historic moment for the entire Counter-Strike 2 community.
The legendary sniper Team Vitality, who has won the major title three times in his career, is now featured on the homepage of one of the oldest sports publications in the world. The issue dated February 18 recorded this triumph — ZywOo, in fact, finally secured the status of a global superstar. By the way, Mathieu was not the first “pioneer” of gaming in this edition: at the beginning of 2025, Caliste “Caliste” Henry-Hennebert from League of Legends was already on the cover. Apparently, the editorial staff of L’Équipe, which has existed since 1946, seriously decided to hype on the esports theme — cool, right?
Table of Contents
ZywOo’s career: 12 years of dominance in Counter-Strike 2
The year 2026 was the twelfth for ZywOo in his professional odyssey of Counter-Strike. Just imagine — since 2018, this guy has been carrying Team Vitality. Over the past 12 months, the team has become a real machine for destroying opponents in CS2. Judging by the statistics, the team took 11 tier-1 trophies and, which is generally powerful, closed the 5th season of the ESL Grand Slam. In short, the guys snatched the bonus million dollars (about 738,200 pounds) — deservedly, in fact.
ZywOo vs s1mple and dev1ce: Who’s the Real GOAT in CS2
ZywOo has long been firmly at the top of the debate about GOAT CS2, especially if you look at its simply exorbitant launch in 2026. His phenomenal versatility and frightening stability, in truth, put the Frenchman one step above s1mple or dev1ce in the eyes of an adequate community. Although, admittedly, the Ukrainian and the Dane still remain the standards of aggressive style and unwavering consistency.
To be honest, the battle “ZywOo vs s1mple” is an eternal classic that always hits the fans with a bang. Alexander Kostylev, of course, totally dominated CS at one time.:GO, having collected an armful of trophies, but Mathieu Herbaut is doing something unimaginable in CS2 reality – his rating exceeds 1.5+ at the largest events. Take the same IEM Krakow 2026: the guy just stuffed 90 frags, dying only 41 times in the grand final — powerful, isn’t it?
Top CS Players Comparison — 2025/2026
ZywOo is not just a soulless machine with AWP (although he is the best sniper according to bo3.gg for 2025 with ADR 86.84), he also performs on riffles at the level of top entry-fragers. Almost 44% of his kills were made from ordinary devices without loss of impact — a rare quality, in fact. S1mple, in principle, plays more aggressively, makes more opening frags, but also makes mistakes more often. But Mathieu wins due to the incredible clutch factor and, importantly, the austerity of the team’s resources — he does not need AWP in each round to make a difference.
As for Nikolai Ridtz, dev1ce is the undisputed king of stability, especially in the golden days of Astralis. But ZywOo, along the way, bypasses him on all fronts: in the period from 2023 to 2026, the average rating of the Frenchman was 1.31 versus 1.19 for the Dane. Plus, Mathieu feels much more confident on the T-side, especially on difficult maps like Inferno. Other young talents like m0NESY or sh1ro (who, by the way, closed the top 3 snipers of 2025) are still not up to his legacy. By 2026, ZywOo already has 29 MVP medals, which is 8 more than Simple.
As a result, the Frenchman wins this race due to the perfect balance: he became GOAT CS2 not only because of his skill, but also because of his perfect adaptation to the MR13 system and the quirks of sabtik. Mathieu makes stupid mistakes less often and retains influence on the game even with technical drawdowns. His triumphs in 2026 — the MVP title in Krakow and leadership in the sniper chart — finally add fuel to the debate about the best player of the decade.
And it was this status of the main star of the generation that forced France to reconsider its attitude towards virtual battles at the state level.
In addition to his gaming successes, Mathieu is actively developing a personal brand — he launched his devices together with ASUS ROG and Pulsar. It looks like the sniper decided to take over not only the servers, but also the desktops of the fans.
Esports in France: government support and new alliances
It is worth considering that France is now actively tightening the screws in terms of supporting the industry. Back in 2023, the government rolled out a plan to create a national ecosystem — assistance with visas for pro players, benefits, and everything like that. And already in 2025, 12 leading clubs in the country created the Union of Professional Esports Clubs. By the way, on February 7, 2026, these guys applied to participate in the first Nations Cup, which is scheduled to take place in November.
In general, the industry is flourishing in France — just remember the recent Ubisoft Six Invitational, which was held in Paris on a grand scale at the Adidas Arena. The fact that ZywOo got on the cover of L’Équipe is not just an accident, but a logical result of how the country is investing in digital sports. Unexpectedly, but the fact is that esports players are now on a par with the stars of football and cycling. And this, to be honest, is just the beginning.
