All clubs in the Bundesliga and the second division are entitled to take part. 26 clubs will compete in the new season of the VBL – four more than last year. That is a record for the eFootball competition in the 2020/21 season organised by the German Football League (DFL) in cooperation with EA SPORTS.
In 2019/20, Kai ‘DETO’ Wollin and Fabian ‘B04_DUBZJE’ De Cae secured an impressive third-place finish for Bayer 04 in the VBLCC. That qualified the #B04 eSports team for the Grand Final. 'B04_DUBZJE' ended up fifth on Xbox One – that meant he just missed out on qualifying for the Round of 16. 'DETO' rounded off an impressive season as the best FIFA player of the year on PlayStation 4 and he finished with the runners-up title across formats.
Next season starts in November. The fixtures for the new campaign will be published by the DFL at the end of September. All matches will be played on FIFA 21 on the levelled-off mode, which means all players and teams will have the same aggregated strength. As in previous years, the eSports players can qualify via the final table for the VBL play-offs or the Grand Final where an individual player is crowned VBL Champion.
Alongside the Bayer 04 duo, the eSports teams of the following clubs will compete in the VBL Club Championship 2020/21: FC Augsburg, Hertha Berlin, VfL Bochum, Eintracht Braunschweig, Werder Bremen, SV Darmstadt 98, Eintracht Frankfurt, SpVgg Greuther Fürth, Hamburg SV, Hannover 96, FC Heidenheim, TSG Hoffenheim, Holstein Kiel, FC Köln, RB Leipzig, Mainz 05, Borussia Mönchengladbach, FC Nürnberg, SC Paderborn, FC St Pauli, SSV Jahn Regensburg, SV Sandhausen, Schalke 04, VfL Wolfsburg, Würzburger Kickers.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen will have to manage without centre-back Edmond Tapsoba in the coming weeks. The Burkina Faso international returned to the Werkself from the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco with a muscle injury.
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The Werkself are away to Hamburg SV at the end of the Hinrunde in the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign. The match at the newly promoted club is on Tuesday night, 13 January (kick-off: 20:30 CET). Ahead of the first encounter with HSV since 2018, Kasper Hjulmand spoke about the strengths of the opponents, lessons learnt from the home defeat against VfB Stuttgart and provided a squad update.
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In Germany, the temperatures are currently around zero, leaving even professional footballers freezing - but not the Bayer 04 Women. Roberto Pätzold's team have fled the cold to the south and are preparing for the second half of the season at a training camp in the Algarve, almost 2,000 kilometres away from home as the crow flies. The Leverkusen squad landed in Faro on Saturday morning and have already completed the first three training sessions over the weekend.
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It was a disappointing Saturday night. The Werkself lost 4-1 to VfB Stuttgart to start the new year on Bundesliga matchday 16 in 2025/26, a result that left both players and fans disappointed. "We played without any passion," said Alejandro Grimaldo honestly afterwards. Teammate Jarell Quansah was even more self-critical, emphasising: "We were miles off it in the first half. You can't put in a performance like that, especially in front of our own fans and I can only apologise to them, to be honest." Read on for the reaction, facts and stats from the clash with VfB Stuttgart in the Werkself review.
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