Eight German players will battle it out in the play-offs from 1 to 3 July for a place at the FIFAe World Cup 2022 – who will follow in the footsteps of ‘MoAuba’?
It has been almost three years since Mohammed ‘MoAuba’ Harkous was crowned FIFA individual world champion – the greatest possible achievement. The German is still the reigning champion, but in 2020 and 2021 the FIFAe World Cup could not be held due to the Corona pandemic. In 2022, however, his successor will now be determined.
From 14 to 17 July, 32 FIFA players will compete for glory and the lion’s share of the US$500,000 prize money. But first, these 32 professionals have to be determined – in the play-offs. 128 qualifiers will take part in the play-offs, among them eight Germans who want to follow in ‘MoAuba’s’ footsteps.
Five Germans through the FGS Ranking
While the FIFAe World Cup opens the FIFAe Finals in July 2022, the play-offs in the individual competition are the last to go. The participants for the FIFAe Club World Cup and the FIFAe Nations Cup have already been found. But which players are currently preparing to enter the finals at the beginning of July?
From a German perspective, Berkay ‘BerkayLion’ Demirci of SV Werder Bremen, Joe ‘JH7’ Hellmann of IQONIC, Benedikt ‘BeneCR7x’ Bauer of VfL Bochum, Bastian ‘Pipe_Crew’ Rupsch of VfL Wolfsburg and Richard ‘RBLZ_GAUCHO’ Hormes of RB Leipzig have all qualified for the play-offs via the Global Series Rankings.
‘RBLZ_UMUT’ double qualified
Hormes’ teammate Umut ‘RBLZ_UMUT’ Gültekin’s strong performances in the FGS would also have sufficed. However, the Leipzig native ultimately received his official certificate for the play-offs via second place in the Virtual Bundesliga (VBL) Grand Final, which produced two more German play-off qualifiers in early June.
German champion Dylan ‘DullenMIKE’ Neuhausen from NEO and third-placed Levy Finn ‘levyfinn’ Rieck from Hansa Rostock are also eligible to play for the FIFAe World Cup. In addition, Turkey’s Koray ‘KKoray’ Kücükgünar of VfL Bochum and Austria’s Ajdin ‘eyedin98’ Islamovic of Viktoria Berlin have made the play-off.
Strong duos from Sweden and Israel
The 32 FIFAe World Cup participants will be determined from among the 128 players offline in London, with the finals taking place two weeks later in Copenhagen. Besides ‘RBLZ_UMUT’ and ‘DullenMIKE’, the favourites include two Swedes, two Israelis, two Argentinians, an Italian, an Englishman and a Saudi Arabian.
The Swedish duo Oliver ‘OliBoli7’ Uttgren and Olle ‘Ollelito’ Arbin must always be kept in mind because of their great consistency. The Israelis Roee ‘Feldman’ Feldman and Yuval ‘YuvalBeli’ Blizovsky were able to make a lasting impression in FIFA 22 – ‘RBLZ_UMUT’ in particular might not have good memories of the former.
eCL winners and ranking leaders
Nicolas ‘Nicolas99FC’ Villalba is the reigning eChampions League winner, while his compatriot Matias ‘matiasbonanno’ Bonanno finished first in the Western European FGS rankings. The same was achieved by Italian Francesco ‘Obrun2002’ Tagliafierro – winner of the third FGS Qualifier – in the Eastern European zone.
Donovan ‘Tekkz’ Hunt and Mossad ‘Msdossary’ Aldossary are always favourites based on their standing and skills alone. In principle, however, each of the 128 play-off participants has the class to make it to the FIFAe World Cup – and to win the title there as well as to take over from ‘MoAuba’.