The German Football League (DFL), as organisers of the Virtual Bundesliga (VBL), decided in the middle of December to postpone the remaining two-against two games in the VBL planned for 22 December due to the coronavirus pandemic. That meant the Leverkusen eSports players only completed their individual games against Werder Bremen and Hannover 96.
The outstanding virtual matches against the northern clubs have now been completed. Bayer 04 carried out comprehensive hygiene measures in the Elgato gaming room which included screens between the players for the two-against-two matches. If there are are individual matches then only the player involved stays in the room. And the main requirement still applies: maintain distancing.
Thanks to the measures taken, Marc ‘MARC_LDW23’ Landwehr and Kai ‘DETO’ Wollin were able to fully focus on the rearranged games – and that paid off. Against the reigning champions Bremen, there was an overall 7-1 win thanks to the 2-0 success in the doubles; after the 1-1 draw in the two-against-two game against Hannover, Bayer 04 also won against the team from Lower Saxony with a 5-2 victory.
The #B04eSports players went into the second session of the evening in confident mood. The opponents were again from the far north of the country and this time it was Holstein Kiel. The Black and Red console players were able to celebrate parallel to the 4-1 home win for the Werkself against Eintracht Frankfurt in the DFB Cup. First of all, ‘DETO’ drew 3-3 with his opponent Cihat ‘CIHAT6161’ Korkmaz and then Fabian ‘B04_DUBZJE’ De Cae beat Kiel’s Benedict ‘B3NN1FIFA’ Ratzlaff 2-0 on Xbox.
As the following two-against-two ended all square at 1-1, Leverkusen earned the third overall winner of the evening. The #B04eSports players are now sixth in the North West division.
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The sustainable use of the BayArena seats removed as part of the current stadium upgrade has taken on a new dimension: Following on from numerous Bayer 04 fans receiving their ‘Undefeated Champions seats’ and various clubs and community organisations from Leverkusen and the wider region having collected the dismantled seats, Blau-Gelbe Kreuz e.V. also made their way to the BayArena recently. The German-Ukrainian aid organisation took away around 2,100 seats; in Ukraine, these will be used to upgrade the sports infrastructure of two clubs.
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