I'm guessing you aren't Korean or Chinese or you'd see what actual 'riding their ass' means on Weidu or Inven.

The eastern scenes are a goddamn pressure cooker and stronger teams emerge for it. Everyone parrots 'eastern infrastructure' like it's some kind of magical spell, but how many western teams don't have coaches now? Staff? Analysts? Did you know GE tigers actually has less infrastructure than any of the NA playoff teams besides maybe TiP?

The real difference is the constant pressure. Players feel the fans riding on their back every game and feel personal shame when they under perform or lose. Look at the well known story of Piglet crying after a dominating win because he felt like he could have played better that game. In this environment everyone can be replaced if they slack off or drop off by dozens of hungry rookies, and for many players this is their actual livelihood. Coaches are never going to let their players fuck around because they will be roasted over a fire, compare this with 'well scarra is a nice guy and a great coach!' based on his non-existent track record of good decision making and p/b. TL's coach struggled with p/b because his players didn't want to play certain meta champions, I chuckle a little trying to imagine something like this happening in SKT or EDG's games.

As long as western teams aren't constantly fighting for their lives feeling like their futures are on the line with every game, NA will never, EVER, catch up to the East as a region. This is the difference between players fighting to put food on the table with hundreds of thousands of people watching your every move waiting to pounce and someone playing LoL for a couple years as a fun aside before going off to college. How many of the most popular players in NA aren't even good? People prize likability instead of performance, and that is probably the only reason why CLG can somehow keep going year after year with a strong fanbase keeping HotshotGG's bank book in the black even while his teams wallows in mediocrity.