SK Jopa: "Our indecisiveness can make Mikyx look bad, but it’s more of a team issue and not that he's playing poorly"

Cologne’s pride finds itself in a predicament in the 2026 League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) Versus, sitting at 1–4 midway through Week 2 after losses to Karmine Corp and NAVI. Despite the rough start, playoffs remain within reach for SK Gaming, but with an upcoming match against Karmine Corp Blue, the team will need to make a strong statement to stay realistically in contention. In an exclusive interview, rookie AD carry Josip “Jopa” Čančar sat down with Sheep Esports before his match against NAVI to discuss his integration into the squad, working alongside support Mikyx (Mihael Mehle), and even reveals his favorite football player.

Josip "Jopa" Čančar: "I think the draft didn't matter that much. We were a bit indecisive and ended up giving too many free kills to them. In the Drake fights, they had advantages from those kills, which made team fighting harder. We held our ground decently and tried to prolong the game as long as possible, even though we weren’t doing too well gold-wise.

Jopa: Our score is obviously not what we wanted, but it is what it is. Everyone is taking it seriously, and of course this isn’t a score we want. We have two more matches this week against NAVI and KCB, and we should be able to go shoulder to shoulder with them. Then we can rebound. The atmosphere is still good. After week one, we had to align on our vision and find a bit more of our identity. Overall, people are still having fun and laughing. What's important is to not mental boom after a few losses.

Jopa: It’s been really easy working with him. He’s obviously a very good player and sees plays that most people don’t, which makes it easy to work with him. Even when I give feedback, he doesn’t have an ego, which is really nice. After games, we always review our laning and do a lot of work together. Overall, we’ve bonded well, the work has been solid, and now we just need to translate that into results.

Jopa: When we’re not decisive, or when we make the wrong decisions on plays, it leads to him dying because he’s our frontline and the first person to go in. Our indecisiveness can make him look bad, but it’s more of a team issue and not that Mikyx is just playing poorly.

Jopa: It’s more of a team thing. In terms of Ekko, it was meant for sidelane pressure. Obviously Azir got a few free kills, so it looked different, and the game plan fell through. Ekko normally provides sidelane pressure, and the goal was to counterbalance with a hyper carry so we could play teamfights as well. Ekko isn’t the greatest in a 5v5, that’s the balance we were searching for. If the enemies first-pick Yunara, I don’t mind picking Jinx into it. We’re finding the balance of when to enable LIDER and when he’s playing champions that are outside his usual pool, and we’re getting better at it. I think we’ll show it tomorrow and the day after.

Jopa: Yeah, in these few games it might have looked like I was permanently weak side, but I think it was normal. I was just farming up as the hypercarry. We were losing 3v3s either way, so it was hard to play for bot.

Jopa: I've bonded pretty well with the team, which was part of why I got picked up. My personality matches well with others, and it shows day to day—we’re having fun and enjoying our time together, even if some people might not expect it. We’re also focused on finding solutions and rebounding.

For my teammates: Wunder (Martin Nordahl Hansen) is pretty funny; he loves to joke and will flame you back if you flame him. Skeanz (Duncan Marquet) is the king of one-liners—he’ll lose a solo queue game and say things like, “Oh, I hate my life, I hate this game,” and it’s just funny. LIDER is full of energy and always coming up with new ideas or theories, so every day there’s something crazy being said and we laugh about it. Mikyx has a hidden talent for finishing songs; if I start singing a song and only remember a few lyrics, he knows the rest perfectly. We were just playing duo queue and a random song popped into my head, and he finished it.

Jopa: For sure. Our schedules involve waking up, doing reviews, duo queueing together, scrims at night, and more duo queue plus review, so we’re always spending time together. We’ve already played over 100 duo queue games, testing champions, figuring out what we like and don’t like, and coming to conclusions. It really helps us understand what we want to play in bot lane. It’s also really fun to play duo queue.

Jopa: I tend to lose my personality in front of the camera. When there’s a camera, I’m not sure what to do. It’s not the same comfort as being with my teammates or people I’ve bonded with.

Jopa: I watch football, usually the Champions League on my off days. We’re also planning to play padel as a team on the next off day, which is pretty exciting. Overall, I’m into sports in general.

Jopa: My favorite football player is simply Lionel Messi. He’s the best, and my favorite.

Jopa: I want to thank the fans for supporting us, even though we didn’t achieve the results we hoped for. I promise we will get them."