After their victory in Leipzig in the first showdown, the Leverkusen eSports team with Marc and Sean Landweh are now heading into showdown two in a confident mood. As usual, this is divided into the online preliminary round and the subsequent offline knockout round (information on the competition format can be found HERE).
SV Darmstadt 98, TSG Hoffenheim, VfL Bochum 1848 and Hertha Berlin await the Leverkusen eSports players at the start of the online preliminary round on Thursday.
The Lilies won just one of their six matches in the online preliminary round of showdown one, with one draw and four defeats. In the end, they finished 28th out of 35, meaning Darmstadt did not qualify for the offline knockout round in Leipzig as one of the 16 teams with the most points, where they could have collected additional points (2 per knockout game won). In the overall table, where all points from the online preliminary rounds and offline rounds of the five showdowns are added up, Darmstadt came 28th out of 35.
The Darmstadt squad includes Dogukaan ‘DOKI’ Gün and Kaan ‘XKAAN61_’ Tuncer. Both have shown defensive frailty up to now - Gün has conceded 5.8 goals per individual match (82nd out of 86 of the strongest defensive players), while Tuncer has let in the most of any eSports player (86th) with seven. Piotr ‘POL_BEAST4’ Wrona, who has a points average of 2.4 in his individual games to date (fifth out of 86), is currently in impressive form.
Hoffenheim - who narrowly failed to reach the semi-finals of the VBL CC final round last season - finished the online preliminary round of showdown one in 19th place (in the same place in the overall table) with three wins and three defeats, narrowly missing out on the offline round. The squad includes Aymane ‘AYMANE’ Mokallik (2022/23 part of the VBL Grand Finals), Fabrice ‘WHITEEZZ05’ Weiß (2023/24 and 2024/25 in the VBL Grand Finals) and Mohamed ‘MOMO_JT06’ Jaatit. Like Darmstadt, Hoffenheim's defence is not yet running smoothly: Fabrice Weiß is the 72nd best defensive player with an average of five goals conceded per game, while Mohamed Jaatit is 77th (5.3).
The first Leverkusen opponents in the online preliminary round of showdown two, who made it through to the offline round in showdown one. With twelve points, they finished eighth and were even ahead of the #B04eSports team (eleventh), who later won the offline round of the showdown in Leipzig. However, the Bochum team lost to Hannover 96 in the Round of 16. As a result, they were unable to pick up any more points for the overall table, where they are currently in eleventh place.
The Bochum squad includes Jamie ‘CHASER’ Bartel, who played for SC Paderborn 07 last season and was in the team that lost in the semi-finals of the VBL CC against runers-up Bayer 04, and the experienced eSports player Timo ‘TIMOX’ Siep. The Bochum-born player has reached the Grand Final for the last three seasons in a row, advancing to the quarter-finals in the 2022/23 season and the Round of 16 in the 2023/24 season. With just 2.4 goals conceded per game, Timo Siep has the third best defence so far this term.
Four points from six games and 30th place in the online preliminary round of showdown one. The Berlin eSports team led by Bastian ‘BXSTIP7’ Puskas, Noah Finn ‘Nokzyy23’ Klitzing and co. are finding it difficult to score goals. Hertha have only scored 24 times - the second-weakest attack amongst the 35 teams. Defensively, however, the Berliners are curiously far ahead. They have the second-best defence of all teams. Of course, this is also due to the fact that they have played fewer games so far, as they were not in the offline round of the last showdown.
Thursday, 13 November
Game 1, 18:00 CET:
Bayer 04 vs SV Darmstadt 98
Game 2, 19:00 CET:
Bayer 04 vs TSG Hoffenheim
Game 3, 20:15 CET:
VfL Bochum 1848 vs Bayer 04
Game 4, 21:15 CET:
Bayer 04 vs Hertha Berlin
If you want to watch the matches of the Leverkusen eSports team: All this season’s games are live on the Bayer 04 app. Fans can also watch the games HERE on the Bayer 04 Twitch channel.
The #B04eSports team will play the two remaining online preliminary round matches next Tuesday, 18 November. The opponents are Karlsruher SC and Borussia Mönchengladbach. The next lowdown on opponents to follow.
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