The most successful coach at League of Legends in the West is a German: Fabian “Grabbz” Lohmann (30). In 2019 he was close to winning the World Cup when he was in the final with G2. But in an interview he said in March 2024: The gap to South Korea and China is much larger than it looks. He explains the problems why Europeans are so much weaker in LOL than the teams from China and South Korea.
That is the situation: The most important tournament at LOL is the World Championships, the Worlds. Here, teams from Europe and North America are performing more and more in recent years after it looked like the West at the top of the world in Asia a few years ago:
But from 2021 it was no longer even enough for the best teams from Europe in LOL for respect. At the latest in the quarter -finals it was over and from the semi -finals only teams from Asia played against each other.
Why is the interview even more relevant today than then? Back then, in March 2024, Grabbz was without a team. Today the 30-year-old is again an active coach and trains the master of LEC in the regular season, Fnatic. In addition, the gap from Europe to Asia grew even bigger: in 2024 the best team in Europe, G2, even left out in the main round.
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This is what Grabbz says: In an interview with Tolkin, Grabbz explains that the gap between the professional teams in Europe and those in South Korea and China is much larger than many fans believe (via YouTube).
Only the success of his team G2 in 2019 put on this huge gap over the years, but the success was not as much about the success at the time as many believe:
We had not had the discussion for a long time because of G2 that we said “We’re close to it” – we are a shit. We were lucky. We were all sure, Damwon makes us 3-0.
G2 lost 15 games in a row to South Koreans in training, wins on stage
This is how Grabbz sees his greatest success: In the interview, the coach explains that even the greatest success of a western team in 2019 was actually a stroke of luck.
G2 had a highly favorite South Korean team, Damwon Gaming, in the quarterfinals of the Worlds in November 2019 with 3-1.
Now he says in retrospect: The training matches against Damwon Gaming were all lost at the time that they were played 0-15 and thought that the match against them would certainly be lost. In two hours, 6 training games against the South Korean team were lost and was completely destroyed. The South Koreans still had jet lag and came to Europe.
G2 was still able to win the decisive game because the young South Koreans could not clarify with the experience of a live match on stage:
We were so overturned by them. And then we sit on Madrid in the stage and win 3-1. What the hell happened there? I don’t know because they shit into the hos.
But it was never the case that Europe was as close as people believed that after the game.
In Europe, the trainer is more fired than the player
Why is Europe in LOL so much worse than China and South Korea? Grabbz explains:
In China you scout 20,000 players at the youth level, in Europe there would be no comparable opportunity to have no radar here. Therefore, you have much fewer players to choose from who have a chance to become a professional. The entire Academy system, in which young players are trained, run much better in Asia.
In addition, the coaches in Asia had the power to put every player on the bench and decide who is playing and who is not – even superstar Faker could be put on the bench. This is not possible in Europe: stars always played.
Grabbz says he spoke to a Liverpool goalkeeper coach and for the football coach it was inconceivable that an LOL coach is missing the opportunity to put a player on the bench.
Power is among the players in the west – coaches are released here rather than the players.
Due to the close salary budget of a team in League of Legends, in which the top players earn so much, there is hardly any money to develop young players.
Ultimately, the established players lack the pressure and the engine to continue working hard on themselves.
Grabbz misses the devotion to European professionals and the willingness to do more
He sees that as a special problem: Grabbz explains that the motivation to improve must come from the players themselves. It is like football. If someone stays on the pitch after training to train free kicks, they are motivated and improved. If a coach orders such an units, it is completely ineffective because the motivation is missing.
Grabbz criticizes that his last team was missing the motivation to really improve by analyzing games from the Asians or the solo tie-matches with a clear intention in the head. It was different with G2.
Grabbz speaks of “mindfullness” that you also play the games in solo cue as a professional with the intention to improve an aspect of your game. If you just tear off your 10 compulsory games, you can leave it. 2 games that are Mindfull games are more sensible than 10 targetless games.
How can it get better? Grabbz believes that the European LOL should actually make a cut and pour out the next 3 years while concentrating on developing a new generation with players who really want to play and improve.
But he sees that as unrealistic. There is no time in the fast-moving business of an LOL coach. An Academy coach must also be successful because it is about his job. Grabbz itself, who is now at the top of the table, had no team for 2 years after having been unsuccessful with the last team: Fnatic fetches German coach for LOL, which no team wanted for 2 years – fans blaspheme, fans, Now he’s the savior