What Does an Esports Coach Do?
By Arlo on Jan 4th, 2026, 08:28
Having superior esports skills is no longer enough to ensure getting the win. With professional esports having transformed into the billion-dollar industry it is today, it’s become a high-stakes competition where companies invest millions to try to get their money’s worth.
With team members all being highly trained experts, it’s often the level of teamwork that makes the difference. In such situations, it’s a coach’s job to ensure that their team holds the advantage.
A great coach can be the difference between a great team and a championship team. But to be a great coach, a single person needs to take on multiple roles, all for the purpose of guiding a team to the greatest heights of professional gaming.
But what exactly does that entail? Let’s see for ourselves what an esports coach brings to the competitive gaming table.
For some time now, esports players have been gauged based on their gaming skills alone. APM has often been the measuring stick that most people have used to weigh in on a specific player’s capabilities, thanks in part to the early esports success of titles such as Starcraft. While that may be partly true, today, there is more to winning than the number of clicks you can manage per minute.
Playing at the highest level is also a matter of intellect and strategy. Before the matter of skill comes up, seizing the advantage is equally important, if not more so. Even if you’re the best player in the game, it may not matter much when your entire team finds itself cornered with no room for cover and no escape lanes. If there is an avenue for this sort of advantage, it’s the coach’s job to figure it out.
Figuring out enemy weaknesses, identifying patterns, knowing player tendencies, and keeping track of constant shifts in game meta, like in Valorant or League of Legends, are all part of the coach’s work. They craft the team’s entire playbook, from opening moves to contingency plans, including player rotations and various win conditions.
It goes even further than that since coaches are expected to understand every player's tendencies, from how they thrive to when they’ll give in to pressure; even more than those players understand themselves. And that goes for both their and the opposing team’s players.
The way to achieve this is through the use of data analysis and VOD reviews (player replays). To an esports coach, every game footage is a piece of a map that leads to a win, and they’ll often comb through every second of footage, every detail to seize any advantage that they can get. They’ll identify missed opportunities to improve chances for the next time, as well as highlight what works to capitalize on it even more.
Most esports games are played and won as a team, and it’s also the coach’s job to ensure that a team is unified enough to be competitive. To do this, they’ll ensure that team communication is effective, that members are motivated to win, and that member conflicts are properly resolved.
They also act as a team’s trainer, designing training programs such as aim training in CS:GO and last-hit training in DoTA, or conduct high-level practice matches to test strategies and optimize plays for competitive matches. They’ll even act as nutritionists or an all-around advisor if that’s what it takes to win matches.
Traditional sports and esports coaches share a lot of responsibilities in modern times, despite how different their fields of competition seem to be. There’s the shared ground where each of these coaches needs to provide leadership, motivation, strategy, and mental fortitude to their team members.
The many roles of an esports coach make it difficult to gauge their true impact, and it’s difficult to measure just how valuable they are to esports success. We know how effective coaching can be the difference that brings about success, but experiencing it for yourself is a different matter altogether.
An esports coach can do more than just help you up your game. They’ll help you identify habits and patterns you won’t have seen by yourself, and provide the keys to unlock your true potential. But how you’ll find the right person for the job is a whole challenge in itself. Fortunately, you won’t have to solve that problem by yourself.
At WeCoach, we connect you with the best esports coaches who have been in the trenches and know what it takes to win. Find your perfect coach today and be on your way to the next level.
