Martin did not expect to be invited to participate in this year's German Cup, and for two months, he struggled every day about whether to retire or not. First, his reaction and state are not as good as before, and second, he can't let go of his identity as an e-sports player. In his own words: Whoever can play professionally, no one wants to be a coach.
After receiving an email from the German Cup invitation, Martin's state of mind underwent a more exciting shift than his favorite roller coaster.
"At that time, I did not have a transformation coach, and my first reaction was that I wanted to play in the German Cup, because my results in participating in the German Cup in the past were still relatively good. But after calming down and thinking about it for a while. ”
"Okay, then I'll be the coach."
One of the interesting things about interviewing Martin is that you can always hear from his words an emotion of "keeping a sense of humor even if it's hard." And just like that, coach Martin's story officially began.
Coach Martin
Most people think of esports practitioners as days that start at noon and end in the early hours of the morning. But martin after becoming a coach is different, he is more like an ordinary office worker, every day at eight or nine o'clock to get up to start studying the game video, waiting for the players to get up at noon. At 10:30 p.m., he would sort out the data and the contents of the meeting the next morning, and then go to bed after everything was over.
"Sometimes I want to convey this normal routine to the players." Martin, 22, said. "But it doesn't feel realistic to think about it, because most of the pros play rank at night. This is a common phenomenon in the industry. But I wish they were healthy. ”
At 9:00 a.m. on December 17, 2019, Martin announced his retirement and announced his participation in the German Cup as the head coach of LGE. Many people wonder why they should stay in the original team as a coach, and with his ability and qualifications, he can go to the old team as an assistant coach or data analyst. Martin's own idea is that as a player, his contract has one year left, and he wants to make up for the remaining year for LGE in another way, which not only saves money for the boss, exercises his ability, but also reflects the spirit of his contract, which is a three-for-one.
Contestant Martin disconnects
After officially becoming a coach, Martin's main work is mainly as follow-up version, training with the players, supervising the team members' ranks, and handling the relationship between the players.
"The players also have to find it themselves during the transfer period. Contracts or whatever are also to be made by themselves. Although there is a manager, everything is discussed together. In fact, LDL's coaching staff is not as abundant as the LPL, LPL like psychological counselors, teachers who lead exercises, teaching assistants, analysts and other professions, but LDL does not have so many resources. Everything can only be taken into account by oneself. "Compared with the player period, Martin seems to have a lot to consider in the coaching period, and the burden on his shoulders is heavier. But he himself enjoyed the process, he knew very well what the young players would encounter, what the team needed to win and what to avoid.
Image: Fighting Fish
LGE was one of the first teams to start preparing for the German Cup, and shortly before the start of the tournament they decided on a squad: Martin's old teammates: zbb and Alun, both from WE's 2 team. AD is Chelly, who has played for OMG, and his personal ability is the tactical core of the entire team. Nosuke is a newcomer, assisted Par was bought by LGE from this year's academy, and Kai Nobu is a Taiwanese teenager born in 2002. The squad ended up with a 1-3 record in this year's German Cup.
Martin was very satisfied with the players and the results in the German Cup, and in four games, even in the face of the biggest disadvantage, the players did not say give up, did not have any thoughts. At the same time, he also reviewed his shortcomings.
"I think as a coach, it's more down-to-earth. After the german cup was played in four sets, even if the inferior players did not give up in one round, they did not have this idea at all, and no matter how difficult the situation was, they would think about how to play, which made me very relieved about this team. I also understand some of my shortcomings in BP, and sometimes I panic when I am in BP, and if the other party does not follow the BP I expected, my on-the-spot reaction may not be so fast. I would strengthen this a little more. Emergency response must be handled well. ”
How do you see that the players don't have the slightest idea of giving up?
"Maybe I'm more sensitive."
I still didn't accept the fact that I wasn't a player
Sum up your career in one sentence.
"Sorry, but not so sorry, or experienced a lot of good things."
After entering the topic of retirement, the rhythm of the entire interview suddenly became heavy.
State, reaction, mental state. Martin listed these three factors as the main reason for his retirement.
"The idea of retiring may have been when I first arrived in the first division, and I thought that even if I won the LDL championship, I would not be able to play because the promotion and relegation system was abolished. And at that time, I had the idea of retiring, but I didn't consider the plan after retiring, so I went to LDL and played for a year. This year, although I said that I couldn't get up no matter how well I played, I was still thinking in my heart: What if I came up? ”
"Another one is my own state, and when I played in 2019, I found that my state was much worse than before. Later to the auxiliary position one is their own reaction ability declines, the second is that their own distractions are too much, thinking more and more things on the field, it is difficult to concentrate, they will think about winning the game, and they will think about what to do if they lose after losing the game. Slowly I felt that this was not the state that a professional player should have, and finally decided not to occupy this position. ”
After retiring from the army, Martin ushered in another inner demon: the transformation of identity. In the two months that he decided to become a coach, he couldn't stand the fact that he was no longer a professional player, which was undoubtedly very torturous for Martin. Martin, who grew up because of his family environment, has a personality that can be described as "autistic" throughout his career. He himself also sighed that if he can return to the time point of the initial career, he will definitely remind himself not to be autistic, teammates are not opponents, do not treat your teammates as opponents, you must find more people to communicate.
"Sorry, but not so sorry, or experienced a lot of good things."
Fortunately, there is never more than one path in life, and when you feel exhausted, there may be new discoveries in changing paths.
After becoming a coach, Martin, who looked at the problem from a different perspective and looked at e-sports from another angle, slowly learned to enjoy the high-voltage profession of e-sports, helping the newcomer players in the team to take fewer detours as a person who came over, and imparting experience also helped him change his personality of not loving to communicate with people. In the new days, he may have discovered the true meaning of the medium of games.
"League of Legends was invented to entertain people and bring social interaction. In the final analysis, it is a game after all, can not say that because of the occupation to become unhappy about this game, in general, it is still a game-based, I hope that everyone can be happy, I hope that I can also be happy. After all, playing a career is not all life. ”
Days to come
Despite talking about overcoming the problems in his heart, Martin has recently had new concerns. Approaching his annual leave, he was worried that the team members would relax when they returned a year later. Being a coach has new concerns every day, which is completely different from what the players think.
Whenever he mentioned his team members, Martin's tone was particularly brisk, responsible like an old father.
"They were very happy this time, the opposing players were basically their idols, and after the game of Kai, he kept saying: Wow sofm is my idol! I'm not going to be blown up!" For newcomers, they feel like they're just going up and playing a game. If it is with this mentality, I will be more at ease when they play LDL. ”
Finally, he also shared his recent life, the Spring Festival Martin plans to attend his family's wedding, the beginning of the year is full of joy. After that, I will play some exciting sports such as skydiving and roller coasters, which is also a way to vent my emotions. In the end, you may go to Shanghai for a spin. Take a look at your old teammates at LNG and VG.
Martin's cover image on Weibo is still his old teammate
"Want to get together with the old teammates of Holy Gun Brother, Xiao Duan, Dragon Brother, Crystal, and zzr, Xuanjun was also a 15-year-old genius teenager, the youngest and youngest Hanbok king, and now he is also in his 20s." As an old friend of the point of view I hope they can be happy, the achievement of this thing in my opinion is to rely on luck to rely on the whole, not too autistic must be happy, I am now where happy to drill. ”
As more and more teams start recruiting post-00s players, we have to admit that an era in the LPL has passed. In the past few years, there have been players who feel amazing, and there have also been players who regret giving up because of age injuries. There have been players who complained about because they hated iron and steel, and there are veterans who have been chasing dreams in the league. But most of the players, who may come in obscurity, will slowly fade out of the league.
Martin's performance as a player was not so dazzling, and the 407 total kills ranked 71st in league history, 174 wins are far from legendary. But his dedication to his dreams, humor expressed in adversity, and sense of responsibility for his work are fully worthy of the title of professional player, and it is also worth learning from everyone.
Martin is very confident about his current goals, first he wants to completely overcome his psychological problems, and then go all out to chase the championship.
"That's what I did in the German Cup, we were confident and we ended up being bloodied by the LPL team. The VG management and the official bo sister both came to hurt me, but it was very happy to return to the field. ”
Demacia Cup, Pro League, League of Legends. Martin is here, he's not going anywhere.