VBL: TSG eSPORTS among the ten best teams in Germany
TSG eSPORTS had already achieved their goal for the season ahead of the final weekend of the VBL Club Championship by WOW. By finishing fifth in the divisional phase and reaching the playoffs, our team more than lived up to expectations. At the big offline event at the Strassenkicker Base in Cologne, our trio went one better: TSG eSPORTS secured a place in the final by beating Schalke 04 in the play-offs on Friday and joined a final weekend line-up featuring the ten best teams in Germany. Although TSG were ultimately eliminated in the group stage, they can still look back with pride on an outstanding season. The new German Club Champion in eFootball is SC Paderborn 07, who dethroned RB Leipzig in the final.
"At the end of the day, it's a huge success for us to have made it into Germany's top ten after a poor first half of the season," said Serhat 'Serhatinho' Öztürk, as he looked back on the campaign. "I'm very proud of the team - everyone has invested a lot of time for our collective success. On behalf of the entire team, I would like to thank the fans who have supported us throughout the season. Some even travelled several hundred kilometres to support us at the final. Now the focus is on the individual championships at the end of April. We hope to be able to give as good an account of TSG eSPORTS as possible once again."
Our team will next compete in the individual competition of the VBL: Thanks to our position in the Club Championship, we have already secured two starting places for the Grand Final, where Serhat 'Serhatinho' Öztürk and Fabrice 'whiteezz05' Weiss will be among those battling it out for the German eFootball Individual Championship.
Final weekend starts with win over Bremen
Our team went into the match against Schalke on Friday with the dream of reaching the final weekend, but they didn't get off to a good start. The pairing of 'Serhatinho' and 'whiteezz05', who have been so consistent so far this season, needed a few minutes to get into the game against Bastian 'Bubschi10' Rupsch and Max 'AntiMax' Eggenkämper. After conceding two early goals (6, 20), our duo found their feet, but they were unable to do more than pull one goal back in the 35th minute. In the singles, however, 'Serhatinho' delivered a superb performance, beating 'Bubschi10' 3-1 to keep TSG eSPORTS in the race. Aymane 'Aymane' Mokallik then ensured that our team reached the final. He was behind for a long time against 'AntiMax', but then produced a remarkable comeback in the closing stages with three goals (70, 77, 90) to take us into the final.
Our team went into the match against Schalke on Friday with the dream of reaching the final weekend, but they didn't get off to the best of starts. The pairing of 'Serhatinho' and 'whiteezz05', who have been so consistent so far this season, needed a few minutes to get into the game against Bastian 'Bubschi10' Rupsch and Max 'AntiMax' Eggenkämper. After conceding two early goals (6th, 20th), our duo stabilised, but they were unable to do more than score the equaliser (35th). In the singles, however, 'Serhatinho' played a great game, beating 'Bubschi10' 3:1 to keep TSG eSPORTS in the race. Aymane 'Aymane' Mokallik then ensured that our team reached the final. He was behind for a long time against 'AntiMax', but then showed a remarkable comeback in the final phase with three goals (70th, 77th, 90th) and thus led us into the final phase.
TSG got off to a promising start in the group with Hansa Rostock, SC Freiburg, Werder Bremen and FSV Mainz 05. In the first match, our team managed to beat the two-time champions from Bremen, one of the favourites for the title. 'whiteezz05' made the difference in the singles match against Berkay 'BerkayLion' Demirci, while the other two matches against Werder both ended in draws. But from that point onwards, TSG were met with frustration. After a very narrow last-minute defeat against Freiburg, they lost to Mainz and Rostock. In the end, our team was one point short of advancing to the knockout round of the eight best clubs. "It hurts a lot that we didn't get that one point," said 'Serhatinho'. "We have to look at ourselves. We'll analyse it carefully and hopefully do better next time."