Riad ‘H96_Riad’ Fazlija of Hannover 96 has been voted “Top Performer of the First Round” in the VBL Club Championship with 61.5 per cent of the votes.
Every season in the Virtual Bundesliga (VBL) Club Championship by bevestor produces new shooting stars and candidates for a place in the German eNational team. One such candidate in the future will be Riad ‘H96_Riad’ Fazlija, who helped Hannover 96 to soar to the heights in Division North-West.
The VBL fans have now recognised his achievements by voting him the “Top Performer” of the first half of the season. H96_Riad’ clearly prevailed over the more notable competition in the Twitter vote: Fazlija received 61.5 per cent of the votes. Two current and one former international players were relegated to second place.
Voting victory against prominent trio
DFB-ePokal winner Philipp ‘Eisvogel’ Schermer from FC Ingolstadt, former club and singles champion Michael ‘MegaBit’ Bittner from SV Werder Bremen and reigning German singles champion Umut ‘RBLZ_UMUT’ Gültekin from RB Leipzig did not even have to share 40 per cent in the shadow of ‘H96_Riad’.
This clear voting result is justified by Fazlija’s sporting achievements in the first half of the season. His win percentage was 61 per cent and on average ‘H96_Riad’ collected an impressive 2.04 points per match. With 16 singles wins and eight doubles victories, he was among the league’s top trio in each case.
Drop in performance in the second round
Fazlija was involved in a large part of the 81 points Hannover scored in the first half of the main round. Part of the whole truth, however, is the small crisis in which the Lower Saxons currently find themselves: In the past four matchdays, 96 only picked up four points, and the lead in the table is gone.
H96_Riad’ himself did not appear on the last double matchday against the new North-West leaders SV Werder Bremen (0:9) and 1. FC Köln (2:5). Before that, the 21-year-old conceded two individual defeats in a row against Koray ‘KKoray_’ Kücükgünar from Bochum (0:3) and Marc ‘Marc_LDW23’ Landwehr from Leverkusen (0:1).
96 at least on course for the play-offs
Hannover are now only second in the table, already eleven points behind Bremen – but only eight points ahead of seventh place. Fazlija has also dropped in the individual rankings: he is now only fifth in both singles wins and doubles wins.
However, the descending form curve does not diminish his successes from the first half of the season, ‘H96_Riad’ was the dominant man in Division North-West. If he and 96 in general get back on track, they should at least make it into the play-offs. And there, Hannover would undoubtedly be among the big favourites.