The group stage of the eChampions League in FIFA 22 will be played on Saturday and Sunday, with 16 German professionals fighting for a place in the knockout rounds.
Does the virtual top flight deliver the next underdog fairytale or will a favourite prevail in FIFA 22? Last May, Oliver ‘OliverPN’ Provstgaard Nielsen was the classic underdog to take the European FIFA crown. This weekend, there is the next step towards finding a successor.
The eChampions League then enters the group stage. At the beginning of December, the 64 participants had emerged from more than 1,000 qualifiers. The four original zones will be combined into two groups, the German pros will compete in “Central and Eastern Europe”.
German Champion and World Champion
Exactly a quarter of the field of participants consists of local players, one Austrian was not among the 16 qualifiers of the original zone. Among the favourites in the German group are VBL singles champion Umut ‘RBLZ_UMUT’ Gültekin, Cihan ‘Cihan’ Yasarlar, Ali ‘PredatorFIFA’ Oskoui Rad and Mohammed ‘MoAuba’ Harkous.
The still reigning FIFA World Champion competes in the eChampions League under the gamertag ‘TheGlatzkopf’. Apart from that, numerous other VBL Club Championship players have made it to the group stage – among others Lukas ‘Lukas_1004’ Seiler, Yannick ‘Jeffryy95’ Reiners and Koray ‘KKoray_’ Kücükgünar.
Halfing in the Swiss system
The Swiss system is planned for the group stage, in both groups (“Central and Eastern Europe” and “Western Europe”) 16 of 32 players will advance to the knockout stage. On 23 and 24 April, this will determine the eight finalists for 27 May from the remaining 32 FIFA professionals.
The action can be followed on the EA SPORTS FIFA Twitch channel over the weekend – even an FGS Swap Token for FUT 22 can be unlocked. The eChampions League prize money totals more than US$280,000, with the lion’s share of US$75,000 going to the winner – and successor to ‘OliverPN’.
