Four teams have already qualified for the VBLCC finals, and twelve more have to make it through the playoffs – including RBLZ Gaming. The team from Saxony can’t hope for many fingers to be crossed for them outside of Leipzig.
In a heart-stopping finale on the last day of the regular season, RBLZ Gaming squandered their chance of advancing directly to the final of the VBL Club Championship (VBLCC). A draw against FC Bayern Munich and a victory for 1. FSV Mainz 05 meant that the three teams at the top of the table in the South-East Division were tied – and RBLZ fell to third place. Leipzig must now secure their place in the final round in the playoffs on Wednesday evening against Hamburger SV.
The team from Saxony cannot hope for the teams that have already qualified for the final to keep their fingers crossed for them. At the media talk on Monday, the four representatives from Munich, Mainz, Bremen and Cologne were honest: “Yes” was the unanimous answer to the question of whether they were hoping for the RBLZ to make it to the playoffs. However, this has nothing to do with doubts about their own sporting quality – but simply with the reality of German eSports.
“Of course, you could use the old cliché that you have to beat everyone to win. And that’s true. But it just makes a difference whether Leipzig is in it or not. That’s a fact, you have to be honest about it,” says Werder coach Fabio Sabbagh. He ‘can’t imagine a team saying that they would rather have Leipzig than HSV in the final – without wanting to belittle Hamburg in any way.’ Therefore, even the coach of Bremen’s great northern rival will be ‘a bit of an HSV fan’ on Wednesday.
Cologne’s e-sportsman Tim Katnatwatos bases his playoff preference on simple mathematics: “The probability of winning the title increases for each one if RB Leipzig is not there,” says the winner of the North-West Division. “Of course, you can win it either way. But like every year, they would be the favorites going into the final.”
“We wouldn’t be satisfied with anything else”
Whether RBLZ Gaming makes it to the final or not, the PK quartet present was optimistic about lifting the trophy at the end of the day. “We want to be champions. We wouldn’t be satisfied with anything else,” says Bayern’s Furkan Kayacik clearly. He and FCB teammate Koray Kücükgünar are not motivated by the club to be champions – ‘that’s our own motivation.’
Cologne’s Katnawatos has ‘fallen on his face a few times with such announcements in recent years’ and is therefore now ”a bit cautious.” But for the local hero, there is only one fundamental goal at the VBLCC final in the Street Kickers base: victory. “It would be the wrong attitude to say we don’t want to win the title,” says ‘TheStrxngeR’.
The most dangerous teams from the playoffs
What’s important is to get off to a good start in the final round. The first step is to get through the group stage. Which opponents await the individual teams there is still largely open. Bayern will face Bremen, while Mainz will face Cologne. In addition, three clubs from the playoffs will be drawn in each of the two groups. Besides Leipzig, which teams have the safe finalists particularly in mind?
Both Munich’s Kayacik and FSV coach Corvin Deterding named VfB Stuttgart, against whom they had already played in the league phase. Cologne’s Katnawatos “would take BVB on board,” Dortmund, according to him, “has a very good chance of progressing.” Bremen coach Sabbagh, on the other hand, has VfL Bochum on his radar: “A player like ‘Jonny’ is always a danger in an offline event.”
