The Virtual Bundesliga (VBL) celebrates its tenth anniversary this year: The VBL Open, part of the VBL competition, first started in 2012 in cooperation with the German Football League (DFL). To this day, it is the only EA SPORTS FIFA game directly integrated into competition of a professional football league. Now over 130,000 people from across Germany take part. All matches are played on the football simulation game FIFA 22 on the newest console generation, PlayStation 5 plus Xbox Series S/X.
The VBL Club Championship, the second competition in the VBL, is in its fourth season. Bayer 04, with its eSports team is one of the founders of this league. Participation in the VBL CC is open to all 36 German professional clubs and 26 teams from the top two football leagues have confirmed their participation this year. The only changes in composition are related to league status: The new second division clubs Hansa Rostock and FC Ingolstadt replace the relegated Würzburg Kickers and Eintracht Braunschweig.
"We very much welcome the commitment and the efforts of the DFL in the area of eSports and we are looking forward to being in the fourth year of the VBL Club Championship," explained Florian Dederichs, the head of eSports and internationalisation at Bayer 04. "With our new and deeper squad, we want to be more unpredictable for our opponents and build on the successful past seasons."
Fabian ‘B04_DUBZJE’ De Cae, Marc ‘MARC_LDW23’ Landwehr and Anna ‘B04_ANNA’ Klink are joined for the new VBL season by new signings Paul ‘B04_Paul’ Degner plus Furkan ‘FURKY’ Kayacik.
At the end of March next year, as part of the VBL Club Championship, the German club championship will be decided. In the VBL Grand Final at the start of June 2020 there will also be a champion of all participating individual players from the VBL Open and VBL CC competitions.
The United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) is celebrated worldwide on 3 December. Together with Bayer AG, Bayer 04 is once again setting an example for diversity and inclusion by lighting up the BayArena in purple in the evening.
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For the second time in four days, Bayer 04 face Borussia Dortmund this Tuesday evening, 2 December (kick-off: 21:00 CET) - this time in the round of 16 of the DFB Pokal, with more than 7,000 fans supporting the Werkself at Signal Iduna Park. After the recent 2-1 defeat to BVB in the league, several cup stats provide hope of revenge for the Black and Reds. There are several reasons why Bayer 04 recommends getting to the round of 16 clash early, in which VAR will be in use, unlike in the previous rounds. Read on for further information on tonight’s game in our matchday news.
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Just three days on from the Bundesliga meeting in Leverkusen, Bayer 04 now visit Borussia Dortmund in the DFB Pokal on Tuesday (21:00 CET). Ahead of the game at the Signal Iduna Park, head coach Kasper Hjulmand spoke about how to approach this second encounter in 72 hours and a number of developments within the squad.
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Werkself TV shows the highlights of Bayer 04's 2-1 loss to Borussia Dortmund on Matchday 12 of the 2025/26 Bundesliga season...
