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GIANTX Guilhoto on the LEC Versus: “Outside of KC, no team should be satisfied with how they played” – LEC Versus Week 4 Interview

Ilyas Marchoude

| Feb 11, 2026

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After GIANTX’s loss to Karmine Corp Blue on the final day of the LEC Versus regular season, the head coach of the Spanish team, André “Guilhoto” Pereira Guilhoto, reflected on the game, the split overall, his thoughts on the other LEC teams, and the level displayed by his players.

Aside from this game, are you satisfied with the way your team played throughout the regular season?

Guilhoto: No, outside of Karmine Corp, no team should be satisfied with how they played and we are no exception to that. I don’t know what’s happening this winter, I didn’t like this format because I think that best of ones are bad for competition in general.

I’m glad that Riot did it because part of the bad performances has to do with some people maybe are too comfortable and my team included, and maybe this can make them be a bit less comfortable knowing that there are players there much more than what people initially thought of that could take their spot and do a better job and seize the opportunity.

This best of didn’t really affect either team’s standings, but we did notice the team’s struggle today. What do you take away from a game like this in this context as a coaching staff?

Guilhoto: That we are having a really hard time at fixing our issues. For us, winter, we always took it as, for example, we’ll force Adam “Jackies” Jeřábek to play mages because he was not good at them. And I think that, to be fair, was the one silver light that I saw. I think that Jackies was our only player that played decent this week, but he played incredibly bad the weeks before.

We did a lot of things that were focused on improvement rather than winning, but the reality is that improvement was definitely not enough.

And either it was problems related to choking or individual performances or drafts. We need to reassess and perhaps change the way we are teaching and coaching the players to see if we can make developments. Because the approach that we are taking right now is clearly not working. Individualized as a team, we are not able to fix and change the things that we have to change.

Would you say this game was a lack of discipline from your players since they were ahead?

Guilhoto: It’s just problems that were happening before. Ismaïl “ISMA” Boualem was already caught before Nashor. Eren “Lot” Yıldız was saying in comms things that he would do and then he ended up not doing and caused discomfort with the team. Yoon “Jun” Se-jun was caught multiple times this week. I wouldn’t call it lack of discipline. I would just call it being bad, just straight up being bad.

I’m trying to contain my words a bit here, but the reality is just that the mistakes that we’ve shown are not for… Especially the individual mistakes that we’ve shown, they cannot be part of this league. And if you want to reach new heights and justify keeping the roster the same, we need to… I don’t think it’s a matter of ego or anything, but we need to start trying harder to make the changes that we need to make.

GIANTX during the LEC Versus 2026. — Photo Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games

You talked about the roster that stayed the same. The roster changed, in fact, this year with the departures of Emanuel “Emi” Ursachi and Nico Perez. Balanced by Nubar “Maxlore” Sarafian joining as he is still discovering the coaching side of esports. How is it going working with him and what are the roles of each coach alongside Rúben “Rhuckz” Barbosa?

Guilhoto: It’s been good. I’m quite happy with the addition of Maxlore. I think he’s helping ISMA and Lot well. I like the way that he explains some things and the points that he brings. This week was for sure not visible, but mainly it’s around that. It’s around helping individually ISMA and Lot. To me he has been a really good addition and I think has been doing a fantastic job. And Rhuckz as well with the bot lane similar to last year and now he’s helping a bit more in draft.

Riot changed the pick and side selection system at the start of the year, what do you think of it and how much does it influence the draft?

Guilhoto: I still think it doesn’t influence the draft that much. Against some teams it can be better to go a different side, but people will always prefer to choose if they have first or last pick. So I don’t think it changes much, but at some point it can. So I’m all up for these additions. As long as it’s not very confusing for the viewership, I’m a fan of this.

Talking about coaching staff, how would you evaluate your performance as a group of coaches so far this split?

Guilhoto: Poor for sure. There’s no way our performance can be evaluated well if the players are not shown the improvements. There is no such thing as the fault is of the players only. It’s always a mix of both. That’s why I said as well that we need to reevaluate the methods we are using to teach the players because clearly they are not working.

They are not like low intelligent human beings or incapable of learning. It must be the way or what we are doing that is not working as well as expected. So before playoffs, we’ll just need to reevaluate that.

GIANTX Guilhoto during the LEC Versus 2026 — Photo Credit: Wojciech Wandzel/Riot Games

Oh “Noah” Hyeon-taek and Yoon “Jun” Se-jun mentioned in interviews that this could be their last year and that they might have to return to Korea. Has the team looked into this or discussed it with them?

Guilhoto: No, that’s not our business. It’s like everyone on this team ends their contract at the end of this year. It’s something that us as Europeans, we will never understand how they can feel about it. And I think it’s disingenuous to try to know. Obviously, we can empathize if they give us the opening to empathize, but it’s a personal matter.

And they know that me, Rhuckz, Maxlore (GX’s assistant coaches) and their teammates are always here to help them. But we know that the best way that we can help them deal with this is to make this year special. So every time that we fail, like today, we are failing them as well.

Some consider that Jackies hasn’t had the easiest split individually since joining the LEC. How is it going day to day with him? Is it something that frustrates him as well?

Guilhoto: It’s really weird because his laning phase is just not at the level that it has to be. That’s where we are focusing right now. He has been putting good numbers and overall not playing bad team fights. But especially when it comes to side lane and laning phase, that’s where the biggest improvements need to come.

So we are focusing on that and especially the stability of lane or just being consistent on the first three levels. That’s where we need to work on. There is some frustration on him, but he knows what he needs to do to work on it.

This LEC split has been stacked. How has GX managed to stand out and make it work for them since they already locked the playoff even before the last day?

Guilhoto: We had a couple of lucky games. Our games against Shifters and SK were incredibly lucky and we should have lost both of those games. And if we had lost those two games, we would be out of playoffs. We need to be very humble coming into playoffs because our level is the level of a team that shouldn’t be in playoffs. We were lucky that everyone is taking games out of everyone.

Any last message for the GIANTX fans?

Guilhoto: Thank you for supporting us. We have an amazing fan base, an amazing audience. Both GIANTX and Spanish fans are… Actually, I will include my country. Iberian fans are the best in the world. So I hope that even though we didn’t give them a reason to, that they can keep supporting us. And we will try everything that we can to make the changes needed for playoffs. We still will take it with an approach that spring and summer are more important. But we know that this is not the track that we want to go.

The point of going for a split where you focus on improvement is to improve. And we are not improving. So we need to change that. And just trust that we’ll do the changes that are necessary for us to make you guys proud and have a better showing in playoffs.

Article Tags

Tournaments

LEC 2026 Versus Playoffs LEC 2026 Versus

Ilyas Marchoude

League of Legends Writer

Moroccan journalist passionate about League of Legends and esports, I write articles, conduct interviews, and share my analyses, always influenced by my love for T1 and Oner (I named my cat after him). My opinions are completely subjective but always honest.

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