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Fnatic League of Legends assistant coach Pablo ‘Gaax’ Pérez has given a candid interview about his experiences with the team, and has not held back.
London-headquartered esports organisation Fnatic exited Worlds 2024 earlier this month, along with fellow European sides G2 and Mad Lions Koi.
Fnatic fans expressed their frustration with what they say as ongoing internal issues within the team, and EU’s poor showing on the international stage.
Gaax’s comments seem to validate such issues. Speaking to Yuste Esports in this interview (as translated and transcribed by Reddit user Gabiilan), he was asked if European LoL players are ‘unprofessional’.
“More than being unprofessional, I’d say they lack the motivation to win,” Gaax said. “They don’t want to be leaders. Players need to seek help to improve instead of boasting that they’ve done everything they could because that’s not true.
“Working hard isn’t just waking up, having breakfast, playing five solo queues, playing scrims, then doing three more solo queues, and going to bed.”
Gaax also spoke about players not taking on board instructions, for example with cross-map plays.
“I don’t know [why EU teams can’t learn to do good cross-map plays]. I’ve explained it to my team a thousand times (in group sessions, individually etc) and I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe they’re lazy or undisciplined, but it seems crazy to me that we’ve worked on these things all year and they still mess them up. And I’ve told them this already.
“[When I point this out] They just agree, saying ‘yes, yes,’ and that’s it. There’s no other reaction. [When I ask them for an explanation] They say nothing, because they don’t have one.”
He mentioned bad habits too, talking about recalls in particular.
“This year I’ve really emphasized recalls,” he said. “I’ve even sat behind my players while they’re playing solo queue and asked them, ‘Hey, you’ve got a lot of gold, shouldn’t you recall?’ And the player would respond that it’s fine and they’ll do it after farming one more camp.”
“I’ve seen my players with 2k gold on them and not recall in time before a fight. And when I asked them why they did it, they just said, ‘I have bad habits’, and kept playing.”
Gaax, Fnatic
Gaax also said that EU could improve as a region if coaching staff improve, the way players are treated changes, and if players realise the current ‘way of working and this culture leads to embarrassment’.
His interview exemplifies that at times challenging relationship between coach and player, and gives insight into topics that aren’t always spoken about publicly.
At Worlds, Fnatic’s roster consisted of South Korean bot laners Noah and Jun, Spanish top-laner Oscarinin and jungler Razork, plus Czech mid-laner Humanoid.
Following Fnatic’s exit from the Worlds swiss stage, roster changes are expected.
Fnatic ADC Noah recently apologised to fans and revealed he told Fnatic he wants to leave the team. He’s now been linked with a move to GiantX, as reported by Alejandro Gomis.
Fnatic founder Sam Mathews said to fans after the LoL team’s Worlds 2024 exit: “I know there are a lot of frustrations and we hear them. Now for the off season.
“Lots to think about and changes needed to bring the level of performance befitting the black and orange on the local and international level.”
Related article: Sam Mathews on Fnatic turning 20 years old and the challenges of meeting the community’s high expectations
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
