Gaming
Esports
The new RBLZ Gaming team on training, the best FIFA and the upcoming season
We catch up with the RBLZ Gaming players about what they hope to achieve in this year’s Virtual Bundesliga.
Youth is everything in football. It’s why you see 16-year olds scouted and transferred for eye-watering amounts of money, with eager fans desperately watching grainy clips of sumptuous skills captured at a youth team game, usually titled something like: Skills & Tricks 2020 | Welcome to Manchester.
This should come as no surprise – clubs that build their philosophy around developing special young talent are usually the envy of fans around the world, set up to succeed in the now and with building blocks for the future already in place.
This is no different in the world of esports, and as RB Leipzig’s esports team faces a new dawn with the launch of RBLZ Gaming, it’s heartening to see that this youth-focused philosophy – so evident in the football team’s development of players like Timo Werner and Marcel Sabitzer – is being embraced.
The recently announced team, nicknamed the REBELZ, is made up of four players, including top young talents Lena Güldenpfennig (19, and who also plays for RB Leipzig’s women’s team), Umut Gültekin (17), and Anders Vejrgang (14). Rounding this out is veteran player Richard 'Gaucho10' Hormes, who at 27, completes a squad that’s a mouth-watering blend of youthful exuberance and cool-headed experience.
We spoke with Güldenpfennig, Gültekin and Gaucho10 to find out more about their time with RBLZ Gaming and what they’re most excited about in the new Virtual Bundesliga.
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For the love of the game
Before we get to the days of professional gaming and epic clashes in the Virtual Bundesliga, we asked the team to take a trip down memory lane to find out when their love of FIFA first blossomed.
For Gaucho10, it was FIFA 99: “My first memory is my brother playing with a friend. My brother is 13 years older than me and he got me to play FIFA 99 – it’s completely different compared to now! I’m not sure who was on the cover, but I fell in love with Thierry Henry that year. I loved Arsenal because of him.”
Gültekin’s story is similar, with an older sibling responsible for showing him the ropes, only this time with a little more trepidation: “I wanted to play, but my brother wouldn’t let me for a few years! As I grew older he let me, and in the beginning I was very very bad, but everyone is bad at the beginning.”
He explains how he quickly improved, playing often enough that he quickly overshadowed his brother, which, Gültekin says, “he was a little bit angry about!”
“I started to play when I was five or six, so very young”, he continues. “I first beat my brother when I was ten years old. He doesn’t play it so often anymore, but in the years before he was very good.”
New season, new team
© RBLZ Gaming
Güldenpfennig, who'll become the first woman to compete in the Virtual Bundesliga, also picked up FIFA at a young age, though as a member of RB Leipzig’s women’s team, we were curious as to what came first: FIFA, or football?
“My love for football [came first] because I’ve played it since I was five years old,” she explains. And unsurprisingly, her attacking style of play IRL (Güldenpfennig plays as a striker) influences the way she approaches FIFA: “I play the same way on the pitch [as on FIFA] because it’s how I look at the game. I think it’s a good way of looking at it: playing very offensively.”
The leap to professional
As anyone with a passing familiarity with FIFA will tell you, there's a vast difference between being good at FIFA, and being very, very good. So when did the team first know they could make the leap from humbling older siblings to professional play?
Güldenpfennig makes the journey sound straightforward: “I played in a charity tournament for a German football team and then RBLZ Gaming called me and said I can join the team, and now I’m here!”
This, however, skims over the many, many hours it takes to ‘git gud’, with a training schedule made even more demanding by her dedication to football: “I train for football five days a week and when I have time in the evening I play FIFA online with friends, maybe one or two hours every day.”
Gültekin, whose preternatural excellence made his path clear, was tearing up the FUT Weekend Leagues in FIFA 18 and 19. At the time, he was too young to compete in the offline events or play qualifiers, but he knew that he had the skills to make the leap: “FIFA 20 was my first season and often I reached the top 100 [in the FUT Weekend Leagues]. In FIFA 20 I could finally compete because I was 16, and there I could qualify for the events.”
It wasn't long before he made his mark, winning the PS4 bracket at FUT Champions Cup 3 this year. He says “it was a great feeling because it was only my second event. I learned how to play with pressure because there was a lot of it on me. It was my first time feeling this, because it was a very important tournament to me. I feel like it was a great experience, and now I know there is a lot of pressure and I know how to play with it.”
Meanwhile, Gaucho10’s path to the top was a little more unorthodox, he explains: “It’s a crazy story – I never played many video games. I’d play a bit on a Friday night with friends, but I always spent my time playing football, and then I got a knee injury and had to stay in bed and started to play more. EA Sports introduced Weekend Leagues so I could see how good I really was compared to other players. That’s when I started to play more and to practise. This was 2017, and I was already 24, so I became a professional very late.”
Joining RBLZ Gaming
As rising stars in the esports world, it was no surprise to see these players snapped up by RBLZ Gaming.
For Gültekin, the move was an exciting one and he describes watching RB Leipzig on TV: “I saw this great club with a great story because they like to play with young people and I’m also very young for esports, so I’m grateful to be here. The main thing for RBLZ Gaming is the future and I think I can help with that because I’m very young and there is a high level I can reach.”
Gaucho10, too, is thrilled by the prospect of such a young, exciting team: “We have a very young team with very big talent. There’s a lot of room for development and we can get even better and take part in as many tournaments as possible and develop different skills.”
In fact, the opportunity to work with up-and-comers was one of the big draws for Gaucho10, who's taken on something of a mentorship role in the team. “I’m 27 and a bit more experienced and I want to give the younger players some of my experience.”
He adds, “I’ve not handed out any advice yet – we haven't had the chance to spend much time together – but with the upcoming season, tournaments and the Virtual Bundesliga, there’s plenty of time to help.”
Yet, while all eyes are now on the upcoming season, getting to this point has been a long and winding road. 2020, it’s fair to say, has thrown up its fair share of challenges.
A year of disruption
For esports players used to the thrill of competition, the year’s disruptions have been a struggle. Gültekin, for instance, explains how the absence of the FUT Champions Cup has seen his training drop off over the past few months when compared to normal times.
Gaucho10, meanwhile, says that the disruption was depressing for him, with the FIFA 20 season cancelled just as he was in a position to qualify for the World Cup – his dream.
However, with the REBELZ now assembled, the team is determined to make up for lost time and prepared for what could be an incredible year.
The REBELZ are here
© RBLZ Gaming
When asked what excited him about the upcoming season, Gaucho10 describes his ongoing battle with Megabit of Werder Bremen – the player Gaucho10 sees as the best in Germany.
“I think last year I played Megabit 10 times and it’s always amazing. I had a very good year against him and of course it’ll be a difficult task to repeat it but I’ll try my best. I won more than I lost, but of course I lost a few. He’s incredible and is one of the best players in the world.”
For Güldenpfennig, this year represents an incredible opportunity to work with her new team-mates, but that’s not to say her targets with RBLZ Gaming stop there: “My goal is to learn more from my other team-mates – it’s all about learning for me. With this team I think we can win the Virtual Bundesliga.”
Gültekin’s aim is enjoyably forthright: “I want to win everything and qualify as often as I can,” he says, before elaborating: “I want to win as many games as I can and improve my skills. I really want to reach the World Cup, because for every esports footballer it’s a goal to reach that tournament. I think it would be a great feeling to be there, because the atmosphere is different to any other tournament. My goal is to win the World Cup, but it’s very difficult. I will do everything to make it.”
Gaucho10, who’s desperate to pick up where he left off from the broken FIFA 20 season, echoes this: “Of course I want to take part in the World Cup next year and with this new club I want to win the Virtual Bundesliga. It’s a tough aim because there are very good clubs but it’s what we are playing for.”
With this team, we wouldn’t bet against them.
