TL Spawn: "It’s our job to make sure this roadshow is successful because we want to come back to places like this"

A spicy flavor has seasoned the 2026 League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Summer Split. The Top 4 teams after Week 4’s conclusion visited Arena Esports Stadium at Cinemex Artz Pedregal to bring the classic LCS fiesta to Mexico City. came into the week undefeated and eager to prove their position as the top dog.

TL had a streaky match against , but ultimately came out victorious. However, back-to-back champions and hometown heroes

LYON

showed how comfortable they’re at their Den, convincingly taking TL down. Following their match against the Rebels, but before their match against LYON, Team Liquid’s Head Coach Jake “Spawn" Tiberi sat down with Sheep Esports. He discussed the team’s two-week preparation, Brandon “" Villegas‘ fan-favorite status, and Mexico’s passionate crowd.

Jake “Spawn” Tiberi: Yeah! Off week, we just scrimmed, and it was fine. We took a two-day break, and I flew in during one of those days; then we had three days of scrims, and we flew to Mexico City two days ago. You know… short flight, and then a short drive, but a lot of traffic, so it took about an hour.

We’ve just been chilling, getting good food, going out and seeing a little bit. Making Jose translate everything for us is quite funny as well, and I’m sure he hates that. Overall, it’s a pretty good downtime, and I’ll say that we needed it. A little bit of relaxation, and you could probably see it in our play; we’re a little bit rusty. However, there’s a big sprint going into Worlds, and we need to make sure we’re ready for that.

Spawn: Not really, but we know because we’ve known about Jose for a really long time at Team Liquid. We scouted him a while ago when we wanted to bring him over to Team Liquid Academy. He’s a player we had kept an eye on. Obviously, for us, when (Park Ru-han) or when Jose gets to come back to Mexico City, these moments are really special.

You get to come back, and you’re kind of the hero of the team for the weekend. He’s really enjoying it. We just did the fan meet, and the fans were around the corner. I would love to say they’re here to see me, because I’m so handsome, but most of them are here to see Jose, which is really nice for him. It’s nice to see the players take pride in where they’ve played historically. I know Jose is Argentinian, but he has a lot of history here in Mexico.

Spawn: Actually, we have a lot of focuses. The other guys have been saying it in interviews as well, but we’re looking more at specific parts of our game during scrims that we’re trying to address. This week was all about a twelve-to-eighteen-minute transition from early game, where we’re quite good, to late game, where we are quite good as well, and how we can move around the map as well.

I think we failed at that today, so we’ll go back and have a look, but more data is good for us. We’ve also been pretty methodical at how we want to approach our early game, dives, and how aggressive we want to be. I think, across the board, our focus has been really good. We’re not even thinking about the undefeated streak, to be honest. I’ve been in the trap before… 2024 Summer Split we thought about it a lot, and it kind of hurt us in the long run. We’re not thinking about it. If we finish Top 1, that’s great because then you get the bye and you get to pick your opponent. That would be nice, but I’m not overly concerned about it.

Spawn: Of course! It’s awesome to play. As soon as you play in Mexico or you play in Brazil, the passion is next level. You see it in traditional sports as well. Honestly, it’s really, really nice. I’ve told the guys: “It’s our job to make sure this road show is successful because we want to come back to places like this.” It’s awesome.

It’s fantastic that LYON and we are probably going to be first and second, in regard to going into the matchup as well, so it’ll be very hard for the fans. Hopefully, we put on a good show. Win or lose, we have to go out there and put on a good show, and there’s going to be a rematch somewhere in the playoffs as well.

We’re super excited as well about it. Hopefully, everyone is as excited as we are, so we can turn this into a regular thing. Credit to LYON for putting this on because they obviously have deep roots here. It’s been a pleasure to come down here and celebrate League of Legends as well. It’s been a really good event.

Spawn: Maybe. That’s our goal, to come in here and turn this place into a library. I’m interested to see if there are more LYON fans or Jose fans. We keep asking who’s going to win because it’s 1v5 kind of fan-wise, but he is powerful like that. In all seriousness, we know how to beat LYON; we need to be able to speed up the mid-game.

(Kacper Słoma) is very good at controlling the mid-game, making it slow and methodical on his terms. We can’t fall into that trap again; that’s what happened in the playoffs. So, speed up the mid-game, have good early games, and see what happens.