Unicorns of Love Sexy Edition is the last Prime League team in the EU Masters. What their coaching looks like Sheepy explains to us in an interview.
Unicorns of Love Sexy Edition is the only Prime League team to make it out of the group stage of the EU Masters. Head coach Fabian “Sheepy” Mallant explained to us in an interview what their training, which has brought them here and should even lead them to an EU Masters victory, looks like.
Sheepy: “If this is not implemented, then we are absolute failures. “
Unicorns of Love could already claim victory in the Prime League. There, the team already looked extremely dominant. This was also reflected in the games in the EU Masters so far. Top laner Daniel “Scarface” Aitbelkacem and jungler Lukas “Lurox” Thoma explain this success with their coaching, among other things. So Sheepy seems to have found a good way to get through to the players. He himself describes his coaching style as tough but fair.
“In the working hours, everything is given and the goal must be achieved, and I think it is clear to all people that the demands are very high. […] That’s why I go in with a clear vision of what we have to do. We just have to win and play the best we can in the working time and if that is not implemented, then we are absolute failures, because that is the only thing that matters in the working time,” said the head coach.
But at the same time, he makes it clear that apart from the intense training, there is also free time which the players can savour as they wish. “I think by having that duality between absolute relaxation time, where also really being told by me, all right, please do this, and this very very intense training, life is just very liveable,” Sheepy explains.
This is where our win streak has to end💔
At least we have the first seed to dry our tears with 🥲
GGWP to @TeamVitality pic.twitter.com/E5cbAS3C3t
– Unicorns of Love (@UnicornsOfLove) September 8, 2022
Preparations for the quarter-finals
This kind of training seems not only to please the players but also to work well, as Unicorns of Love went out of the group as the first-placed team. In the quarter-finals, however, the team will soon have to face the Spanish team Heretics. Apart from intensive scouting of the opponents, the main focus is, of course, on gameplay.
Sheepy describes the training as follows: “In the last two days we have been working on what kind of champions we want to have.
we want to have. There was the new patch 12.16 which now has to be played until the end for the EU Masters. […] There were some champions that we tried out and some that we will now adopt […]. The next two days will be focused on cleaning up relatively much. That means comps have to sit relatively well, the champions we want to pick are becoming clearer and you should be more structured in the draft.”
With that, the coach wants to win. Apart from making it to the semi-finals, winning against Heretics is important to him for another reason. “We indirectly knocked out Giants, the one Spanish team and now we could knock out the second Spanish team with Heretics. That’s very nice, of course, if you can then piss off an entire fanbase like that,” Sheepy says with a laugh. “And after that, there are only French teams left. That means that we as Germans then have to position ourselves, of course, and preferably above the other teams as well. “
LDLC next?
If Unicorns of Love actually manage to win against Heretics, it could well be that they will play LDLC next. A strong opponent, which the players and Sheepy are also aware of: “We have a lot of respect for the opponent, but they deserve that. […] I think we just see them for what they are, strong opponents. […] And that actually just means that we have to prepare well and train hard and I think people will know that.”
For the head coach, however, training hard does not mean that only the players have to do more. “I bleed with them, after all. After all, I’m the one who gets the sweat drops rolling down first. I really invest everything in the working hours for the people and I think that also inspires when someone invests so much in you and I think that is also a thing that is very important for coaching,” said Sheepy.
So Unicorns of Love seem to have some work to do before they face Team Heretics in the quarter-finals on 18 September. But even if they win that game, they still have a long way to go to reach the European Cup. So only then will it become clear whether the training has been worthwhile.
