Echo Fox names Kim “Ssong” Sang-soo as New Head Coach
Kim “Ssong” Sang-soo, former head coach of TSM, has joined Echo Fox, the team announced today.
“With his extensive experience and impressive track record, we believe that as our NEW Head Coach, Echo Fox is on its way to success,” stated Echo Fox in their announcement post. Echo Fox founder Rick Fox also expressed his excitement about the addition of Coach Ssong in an interview with Newsweek.
Ssong’s Journey to Echo Fox
Ssong joins Echo Fox after a challenging 2018 season with TSM. As part of TSM’s rebuild, Ssong was expected to lead the team to international triumph. However, TSM faced difficulties throughout the year, failing to reach the domestic finals in both the spring and summer splits. Due to their underperformance, TSM replaced Ssong with Ham “Lustboy” Jang-sik and later Parth Naidu as on-stage coaches. Ssong made his on-stage return later in the year after Riot Games allowed NA LCS teams to have two on-stage coaches.
TSM began to find success towards the end of 2018 and came close to qualifying for the 2018 World Championship. Unfortunately, Ssong and TSM lost to Cloud9 in the NA LCS Regional Qualifier finals, consequently ending their season prematurely.
Echo Fox’s Coaching Struggles
Similar to TSM, Echo Fox faced coaching challenges throughout the past year. In the middle of the 2018 NA LCS Summer Split, Nick “Inero” Smith unexpectedly stepped down as Echo Fox’s head coach. Thomas “Thinkcard” Slotkin temporarily took charge for the remainder of the season. It remains unknown whether Thinkcard will stay with Echo Fox or pursue a head coach position on another team.
Echo Fox has not announced any changes to its player roster at this time.
Watch the announcement video on Twitter here.
Echo Fox, Ssong, Kim Sang-soo, TSM, League of Legends, coaching, esports