Contrary to the experts’ predictions, Bayer Leverkusen is through to the quarter-finals of the VBL Club Championship ahead of schedule. Marc Landwehr has played a big part in the success of the eSports factory team – even though he is currently hardly getting any sleep
Marc Landwehr may have looked well-rested in the group stage of the VBLCC final. But he was not. The 22-year-old was still working on Saturday night – without a controller in his hand.
Landwehr is a nurse at the Clinic for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at the Evangelical Hospital in Bergisch Gladbach. The eSportsman from Bayer Leverkusen is currently working the night shift. He has not taken time off for the final round of the German club championship.
His professional schedule this weekend is correspondingly grueling. “We had our play-off clash against Stuttgart on Friday until around 8pm. Then I said goodbye to everyone and went to the hospital, where I had to work from 9 pm to 7 am. After that, I slept until 9am. We met up here again at 9.45am,” Landwehr told kicker eSport on Saturday.
His “luck” is that the VBLCC final is taking place in Cologne. It takes 20 minutes to drive from Landwehr’s home in Leverkusen to the location at Strassenkicker Base. On Sunday, however, the Bayer professional will get even less sleep after the next night shift: The Werkself eSportsmen will meet at 9 instead of 9.45 a.m. – after all, they are already required half an hour earlier than the day before.
“I’ve been doing this here at Bayer for the fourth year now, and I’ve been a nurse since 2019. By now, it’s almost a habit to sleep a maximum of five hours,” said Landwehr. He was quickly dubbed “Sleepless Marc” in the VBL livestream as part of a community vote
However, he was not able to see the tight program on Saturday. Contrary to the experts’ predictions, Leverkusen will not finish fifth in Group A – the quarter-finals have already been booked. In the doubles with his cousin Sean Landwehr, ‘marc_ldw23’ beat both Bochum (2:0) and Hertha (3:0). In the singles, after leading 3:0 against Bastian Puskas, he allowed the Berlin player to make a comeback – only to win 4:3 in injury time.
“After going 3-0 up, I didn’t think Basti would go full throttle again and shifted down two gears,” said Landwehr. “Then it took 15 in-game minutes until it was 3:3. So I had to ramp up again quickly and created chances. I was able to play out the counter-attack well in the final minute. “
“Broad chest and self-confidence” at Bayer
In his final match of the day, it even looked as if he could wrest a draw from Leipzig’s club world champion Anders Vejrgang. However, the Dane scored shortly before the end to make it 2:1 from RB’s point of view. Nevertheless, the team from Leverkusen showed that they could have a say in the fight for the VBLCC title.
“Sean and I are very good at 2vs2 at the moment. It’s also difficult to beat both of us in singles. We’re going into the remaining matches with a broad chest and self-confidence,” said Landwehr. Should Bayer’s eSports team actually show the footballers the way and become German champions, he might not get much sleep from Sunday to Monday. But then probably for a different reason
