Ivo "LohaN" Albino will not be homeless for long. On Wednesday, Joblife announced that they authorised the roster and coaching staff of their VALORANT team to explore their options. The team's Head Coach wrote shortly after on his X account: "Updates about my future soon". This Thursday, according to Sheep Esports sources, the Portuguese has reached a verbal agreement to join Team Liquid in VCT EMEA, Riot Games' regional FPS top league, as Head Coach. He’s also now definitely “on [his] way to Berlin”.

So close to the perfect year

This promotion seems well-deserved for LohaN. The coach is coming off an almost perfect year with JL, with a project that he was invited to create when he arrived at the club. With their international roster, Joblife followed the steps of Gentle Mates by winning, like M8 did in 2023, the two Stages of the VCL France 2024. The team founded by Toma "Tomy" Abdellaoui qualified for the EMEA Ascension tournament, which could have seen JL promoted to the VCT EMEA.

But the adventure ended in a highly contentious manner. In the Group Stage, during the match against MOUZ which could have enabled Joblife to qualify for playoffs, Jasiek "Jas" Nieliwodzki experienced repeated disconnections. Riot Games' handling of the situation caused a stir on social networks, but resulted in JL's defeat and the end of the season for both the club and LohaN.

Everything has to be rebuilt

With Liquid, he will have the responsibility of restarting a broken machine. The gamble of the VCT 2023 champions to rebuild around former Apeks players completely failed. In 2024, Liquid went out in the first round of the Stage 1 playoffs and did not even get past the Group Stage of Stage 2. As a result, the club did not take part in any international events during the season.

LohaN's arrival is therefore the first building block in the new structure of Team Liquid's future. According to sources at Sheep Esports, the club had also considered three other serious options to take over as Head Coach: Dimitar "Itopata" Staev, Danail "DANNYTO" Sofroniev and Vincent "Happy" Schopenhauer. The first of them is likely to renew his contract with Leviatan after winning Stage 2 of the VCT Americas.

The other two, on the other hand, have not yet ended their season: DANNYTO still has to contest the final of the EMEA Ascension tournament with Apeks, while Happy is involved in the Americas Ascension tournament with M80. The French coach was also considered by Gentle Mates, as previously reported by Sheep Esports.