apEX: "If we win the trophy will people remember that we struggled in the groups in like six months"

Vitality have locked in a semi-finals berth at BLAST Rivals Spring 2026 following wins over FUT and G2. However, it wasn't without struggle as one of the best teams in history required three maps to beat both of their opponents.

Following this win, Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore briefly spoke to Dan "apEX" Madesclaire about Vitality's road to playoffs, their busy schedule, the need to prioritize mental health, the upcoming IEM Cologne Major.

Find the video interview below with a full transcription underneath. All questions and answers have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

A far bumpier road to playoffs than many would have expected. Do you think the fact that the team struggled but ultimately topped the group stage is a sign of strength and resilience or a sign of weakness ahead of playoffs?

Yeah we did the same in Rio, no? In Rio it was the same, no? We struggled in the group stage and we played really well in playoffs. We knew coming here that we did not have the best energy, no practice, and that it would be tougher than usual, but it's fine.

We know how to fight with our weapons and we have fucking insane weapons as well. It's just a day at the office and giving our best. It's not giving up and giving our best because when we do that it is tough for any other team.

So it doesn't sound like there's a lot of concern in the Vitality camp. Is the plan just to go to playoffs and do what Vitality is known to do?

As I said you cannot expect a team that hasn't practiced to play the best CS ever. We accepted that and sometimes you need to have priority tournaments in the year and some that are de prioritized and that's what we do.

Today is not a prioritized tournament but we still make the semifinals. If we win the trophy will people remember that we struggled in the groups in like six months? No, no one will.

So for us it is just getting through the tough moments, getting better after each game, and trying to win the trophy once again.

ropz told us during the media day that the plan is to have a brief vacation ahead of IEM Atlanta. So it sounds like the goal there is to prioritize mental health instead of your in-game competencies ahead of the Major, right? Will there then we a period of intense boot camping before the Major?

I will be honest, the problem is the practice in the US isn't the best overall, so why waste our time. Me and mezii are going to New York but we're probably going to go to the FACEIT HQ to play deathmatch and play an hour or two of CS a day to not get rusty.

But yeah, we prioritize our mental health and our rest which is really important for us. It's the most important thing in CS in my opinion when you have around 16 tournaments a year.

We see a lot of teams crumble when they do too many tournaments. For us, its about focusing on that and to see how it goes. As I said it's not the most important tournament to us. The most important is to get the back-to-back-to-back Majors.

It looks like there will be the potential for a Vitality-G2 rematch in the finals. How you feel about a potential rematch after playing an intense match against them today?

Overall it should have been not that close. We should've closed Mirage before and Dust2 was on our side. The only map they should've won was Overpass and they played well on it. So I'm fine still even though that was too close to be honest.

I'm fine to rematch and it's always fun to play against G2. flameZ is good friends with NertZ and I really like huNter-, SunPayus... they're all good people so it's going to be fun.