The most successful coach in League of Legends in the West is a German: Fabian “GrabbZ” Lohmann (30). He was close to winning the World Championship in 2019 when he reached the finals with G2. However, in an interview in March 2024, he said: The gap to South Korea and China is much larger than it seems. He explains the problems why Europeans are so much weaker in LoL than the teams from China and South Korea.
This is the situation: The most important tournament in LoL is the World Championships, the Worlds. European and North American teams have performed worse in recent years, after it had seemed a few years ago that the West was close to being at the top in Asia close
:
- In 2018, the EU team Fnatic became the runner-up in the World Championship – G2 and Cloud9, two more teams from the West, finished third and fourth.
- In 2019, G2 made it to the finals in Paris and became the runner-up.
- In 2020, G2 at least reached a third/fourth place and was eliminated only in the semifinals.
However, from 2021 onwards, even the best teams from Europe in LoL couldn’t achieve even notable successes. By the quarter-finals, it was over and from the semifinals onwards, only teams from Asia played against each other.
Why is the interview still more relevant today than back then? Back then, in March 2024, GrabbZ was without a team. Today, the 30-year-old is an active coach again and trains the champion of the LEC in the regular season, Fnatic. Moreover, the gap between Europe and Asia has grown even larger: in 2024, the best team in Europe, G2 was even eliminated in the group stage.
This is what GrabbZ says: GrabbZ explains in an interview with Tolkin that the gap between 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 concealed this huge gap for years, but the success back then was not as significant as many believe:
We hadn’t had the discussion for a long time because of G2, that we said “We are close” – we are not. We were lucky. We all knew Damwon would beat us 3-0.
G2 lost 15 matches in a row against South Koreans in training, wins on stage
This is how GrabbZ sees his greatest success: The coach explains in the interview that even the greatest success of a Western team in 2019 was actually a stroke of luck.
G2 eliminated a highly favored South Korean team, DAMWON Gaming, 3-1 in the quarter-finals of the Worlds in November 2019.
Now he says in retrospect: They lost all the training matches against Damwon Gaming back then, they played 0-15 and thought they would surely lose the match against them. In two hours, they lost 6 training matches against the South Korean team and got completely destroyed. The South Koreans were still suffering from jet lag, having just arrived in Europe.
However, G2 managed to win the decisive match because the young South Koreans couldn’t handle the experience of a live match on stage:
We were completely overrun by them. And then we sit on stage in Madrid and win 3-1. What the hell happened? No idea, because they choked.
However, it was never the case that Europe was as close as people believed after the game.
In Europe, the coach is fired more often than the player
Why is Europe so much worse in LoL than China and South Korea? GrabbZ explains:
In China, 20,000 players are scouted at the youth level, while Europe lacks any comparable opportunity; there is no radar here. Therefore, there are far fewer players available who have a chance of becoming professionals. The entire academy system, in which upcoming players are trained, works much better in Asia.
Moreover, in Asia, coaches have the power to bench any player and decide who plays and who does not – even superstar Faker can be benched. In Europe, this is not possible: stars always play.
GrabbZ says he spoke with a goalkeeper coach from Liverpool, and it is unimaginable for a football coach that a LoL coach would lack the ability to bench a player.
In the West, the power lies with the players – coaches are more often fired than the players.
Due to the narrow salary budget of a team in League of Legends, where the top players earn so much, there is hardly any money available to develop upcoming players.
Ultimately, established players lack the pressure and motivation to continue working hard on themselves.
GrabbZ misses the dedication from European professionals and the willingness to do more
He sees this as a particular problem: GrabbZ explains that the motivation to improve must come from the players themselves. It’s like in football. If someone stays on the pitch after training to practice free kicks, they are motivated and improving. However, if a coach orders such extra sessions, it is completely ineffective because the motivation is lacking.
Thus, GrabbZ criticizes that in his last team, there was a lack of motivation to truly improve by analyzing Asian games or approaching solo queue matches with a clear intention. That was different with G2.
GrabbZ talks about “mindfulness”; that even in solo queue as a pro, one plays with the intention of improving an aspect of their game. Just doing their 10 mandatory games isn’t enough. 2 games played mindfully
are more valuable than 10 aimless games.
How can it get better? GrabbZ believes that European LoL should actually make a cut and sacrifice the next 3 years while focusing on developing a new generation of players who truly want to play and improve.
But he sees this as unrealistic. In the fast-paced business of a LoL coach, there is no time for that. Even an academy coach must achieve success because it is about their job. GrabbZ himself, who is now at the top of the table, had not trained a team for 2 years after he had no success with his last team: Fnatic brings in German coach for LoL, who no one wanted for 2 years – fans mock, now he is the savior
