The German coach Fabian “GrabbZ” Lohmann (30) has long been considered extremely successful in League of Legends. During his time at G2, he won title after title. However, he fell out of favor and was without a team in 2023 and 2024. A tough time for him, as he says now. In 2025, he was given a chance with the struggling team Fnatic: The fans mocked the hiring at first. But for GrabbZ, things are going excellently.
That was the peak of GrabbZ: GrabbZ had his best time at G2 Esports between 2018 and 2020: G2 was the best team the West ever sent into the competition in 2019 with Perkz, Jankos, and Caps. In 2019, GrabbZ won the MSI 2019, the Spring and Summer Split in the LEC, and finished second at Worlds.
But for the coach, who was long considered “the best coach in the West”, it ended in 2021 at G2: That was the year when Perkz was replaced by Rekkles, and the performance was poor. Years later, the CEO stated that Rekkles had been a terrible teammate
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GrabbZ then coached Team BDS in 2022 but only stayed there for a year. Team BDS had a weak year, finishing second to last in Spring and last in the Summer Split 2022. Afterward, GrabbZ, despite winning so many titles at G2, simply couldn’t find a team.
German star coach was without a team for 2 years, went through tough times
How was GrabbZ during the time without a team? In a recent interview (via YouTube), GrabbZ talks about the time when he was not coaching a team:
I want to coach a team. I want to be in the scene, it brings me joy. Everyone has a passion in their life, and when you lose that, it feels somehow pointless to get up in the morning. I don’t want to say I was depressed because depression is such a serious issue, I don’t know if that diagnosis applies to me – but I had phases in 2024 where I had really little motivation.
GrabbZ says that the managers thought he had completely stopped and was retired because he was no longer seen. That’s why he started streaming and creating content, but that didn’t give him anything at all. Therefore, he is now grateful that Fnatic gave him a chance.
Fans doubt the coach when Fnatic signs him
What was it like when Fnatic brought him on? About 3 months ago, it was announced that Fnatic, which came from a mixed season, had signed GrabbZ as their new head coach. Fnatic finished the Spring Split first, but then lost to G2 in the finals of the playoffs. However, Summer and Winter were only mediocre for Fnatic.
With the German ADC Upset and support player Mikyx, Fnatic also secured a new bot lane: Upset came from a difficult situation as well. Mikyx had just been removed from G2 after he and the jungler were blamed for G2’s poor performance at Worlds.
The comments about the hiring of GrabbZ on reddit were mixed. Users said:
- The team either plays 9-0 or 0-9
- GrabbZ can’t manage the mid laner Humanoid. He has no leverage to deal with the difficult player
- GrabbZ doesn’t have a good record if you exclude G2 2018-2020, it was said
- Another said: Nothing would change. This messed up team couldn’t even be saved by Kkoma, the star coach of T1
Fans do not understand how anyone could ever doubt GrabbZ
How did it really go?? GrabbZ and the supposed “loser roster” dominated the Winter Split 2025 in the LEC. They only lost the opening match and then won 8 games in a row. With a record of 8-1, they finished the regular season in first place.
In the comments on reddit, it now says:
- It’s insane how a few memes have managed to portray the most successful coach in the West of all time as someone who just steals paycheck.
- It’s clear to see that he still has it.
- GrabbZ is the ideal coach to manage a team with players who have “big egos” and keep them under control.
GrabbZ’s career has strong parallels to Upset’s career
What’s behind this: It is remarkable that a coach in LoL, who has been successful for years, only needs two weaker years with teams that have a dysfunctional roster before sitting at home for 2 years. This shows that in LoL, circumstances matter much more than how competent a player or a coach is perceived:
- At G2, everything obviously went wrong after the departure of Perkz and the hiring of Swedish star player Rekkles.
- His next team, Team BDS, also apparently had internal issues with young players. Adam, who was considered a huge talent but already caused a lot of unrest at Fnatic, played there.
Parallel to GrabbZ, his current ADC Upset also had a terrible 2 years. As with GrabbZ, Upset’s suffering began when Rekkles was brought into his team.
GrabbZ and Upset, along with Broken Blade and Kaiser, are the best Germans in LoL. It is a strange development that 2 such successful e-sports athletes have had equally unfortunate years and then became so successful together 25-year-old was long considered the best German in LoL, then Fnatic kicked him out, now he is back
