As of this season, the clubs no longer compete in divisions, instead playing against each other in five so-called showdowns. These consist of an online preliminary round, spread over two days, and then an offline knockout round in a rotating German city. The top 16 teams in each online round advance to the offline round. In the online round, each club plays six matches against assigned opponents. More information on the new format can be found HERE.
Leverkusen's opponents in this online round are SC Paderborn 07, DSC Arminia Bielefeld, 1. FSV Mainz 05, SV Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund and SG Dynamo Dresden. The new season started with the meetings against the first three teams yesterday, Thursday 16 October. Commentary on the games came from Niklas Schmitz aka 'NickMan' and co-commentator and influencer 'Snipsska'.
Leverkusen faced heavyweight opposition first in the form of Paderborn, semi-finalists last season and double winners in 2023/24. In the first of the two games, Sean 'SEAN_LDW07' Landwehr took on 16-year-old Dutchman Morris 'Morris' van de Pol. The Paderborn player won 4-2, meaning Marc 'MARC_LDW23' Landwehr had to make up two goals in match two. And he delivered, beating 21-year-old Israeli Yuval 'Yuval' Blizovsky - the 2024 runner-up at the FC Pro 24 World Championship - 4-1 after falling behind early. 'Power Item' Christian Kofane netted a hat-trick. So, it was a 6-5 win for Bayer 04 and three points to kick things off.
The second opponents were promoted outfit Arminia Bielefeld. The fixture started with the clash between Sean Landwehr and Laurin-Noah 'SNAKEZ' Bartsch. The Bielefeld man won 2-1 but Marc Landwehr produced the goods in the second game again, comfortably winning 5-2 against Hisham 'LIBOO7_' Badreddine to get another three points on the board for the #B04eSports team.
The first matchday concluded with another top-level opponent in Mainz, runners-up in the South-East Division last season, who'd already won two out of three matches at this point. Ditmir 'DITMIR_4897' Alimi, who reached the last 16 of the VBL Grand Final last season, beat Sean Landwehr 5-3 in the first game, leaving cousin Marc with a deficit to overturn again. This time, though, he couldn't turn it around. Despite some good play, he was beaten 3-2 by a strong counter-attacking display from Joe 'JH7' Hellmann.
The results at a glance:
Showdown 1 (online round) - Match 1
SC Paderborn 07 (L) vs. Bayer 04 (W)
'MORRIS' 4-2 'SEAN_LDW07'
'YUVAL' 1-4 'MARC_LDW23'
Overall: 5-6
Showdown 1 (online round) - Match 2
DSC Arminia Bielefeld (L) vs. Bayer 04 (W)
'SNAKEZ' 2-1 'SEAN_LDW07'
'LIBOO7_' 2-5 'MARC_LDW23'
Overall: 4-6
Showdown 1 (online round) - Match 3
1. FSV Mainz 05 (W) vs. Bayer 04 (L)
'DITMIR_4897' 5-3 'SEAN_LDW07'
'JH7' 3-2 'MARC_LDW23'
Overall: 8-5
With six points from three matches, the Leverkusen gamers sit in 13th place in the table. The full table can be found on the VBL website. It continues with the second half of this online round of this first showdown on Tuesday 21 October, against Werder Bremen from 18:00 CEST, then Borussia Dortmund (from 19:00 CEST) and Dynamo Dresen (from 20:00 CEST).
Bremen (17th place) and BVB (20th place) started the season with four points from three games, while Dresden are in fifth place with seven points. More information about the upcoming opponents can be found in our overview. As usual, the three matches on Tuesday will be streamed on the Bayer 04 app and on the club's own Twitch channel.
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