Carlos “ocelote” Rodríguez Santiago is a former LoL pro and from 2015 to 2022 was the team leader of G2 Esports. Under his leadership, Rekkles also played for the team. However, after only one year, their paths parted ways. Now, ocelote has commented on the situation back then in an interview and does not have a good word for his former player. But he himself is also controversial.
How did it go for Rekkles at G2 Esports?
- Carl Martin Erik “Rekkles” Larsson played for Fnatic as AD Carry from 2015 until the end of 2020 and did so very successfully. He was regarded as one of the best bot laners in the world.
- Right in his debut season, the team finished 3rd/4th at the Worlds. This was followed by a quarterfinal appearance in 2017, a second place in 2018, and again a quarterfinal appearance in 2019 and 2020. Fnatic also won several national titles during this period.
- In 2020, he went to Fnatic’s perennial rivals G2 but could not lead the team to victory. After a year, their paths parted again. The transfer is now considered the biggest misunderstanding in the European LoL scene.
- Rekkles surprisingly transferred to Karmine Corp in 2021, a team in the French league, similar to the second league. This is exactly what ocelote refers to in his interview.
- After a failed comeback as ADC at Fnatic, Rekkles is currently registered as a supporter, but only on the team’s bench.
What happened now? In an interview with e-sports journalist Thorin (via YouTube), the former head of G2 Esports shares various anecdotes, including about his players Caps and Perkz or the World Championships.
They also talk about Rekkles.
“He is often the worst teammate you can have”
What does ocelote say exactly? He particularly criticizes Rekkles’ team spirit. Every player who has a rough idea of a functioning team would not get along with the pro.
He supposedly disregarded instructions from management and had a very limited champion pool. In scrims, he muted his microphone and simply chose a champion to his liking. This made it difficult to work with him.
He is often the worst teammate you can have in a team. Of course, he is the best you can have when it matters and he is fed [Note: has a lot of gold and is ahead of others].
The former team leader also admits that he knew before signing him that it was very unlikely to work out.
When I was able to get him, I thought: ‘The probability of failure is high. However, the probability of incredible success is not zero.’
What does ocelote criticize about the transfer? After the season did not go well, a separation between the team and Rekkles was inevitable. But there were also problems here.
Thorin reports that Rekkles himself stated that he wanted to prevent G2 Esports from profiting from this transfer. He allegedly tried to lower his market value. G2, on the other hand, did not want to sell the pro to a competitor from the LEC. So Rekkles ended up in the second French league.
He shot himself in the foot. I believe good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Of course, there are exceptions, but that was not the case with Rekkles. He ended up in the second league, as he deserves.
ocelote is heavily criticized, considered hot-headed and confrontational
Who criticizes Rekkles? ocelote was team leader of G2 Esports until 2022 but had to leave then. It was a video on Twitter, in which he celebrated with Andrew Tate, that became his undoing.
The former kickboxer Andrew Tate has become one of the notorious figures on the internet, particularly because of his views and behavior towards women. This is seen by many as misogynistic.
G2 Esports then announced that they do not support “any form of misogyny” and ocelote left the team.
However, during his time as team leader, he had also had some outbursts. He called other LoL teams greedy and referred to Twitch streamer Nickmercs “a degenerate with a fragile ego”.
