Antonio Radelja is the new German singles champion in FIFA 23. The Eintracht Frankfurt player defeated Berkay “BerkayLion” Demirci from FC St. Pauli 1-1 and 3-1 in the final of the Virtual Bundesliga Grand Final tournament.
“I have so many feelings inside me, it’s indescribable,” said the 21-year-old in an interview after holding up the championship trophy.
FIFA 23: Exciting finale in the VBL
In the final, things got exciting at first: After a 1-1 draw in the first game, everything was open for the decisive game. Here, too, it looked balanced for a long time – until Radelja scored the 2-1 in the 77th minute. A short time later he made it 3-1.
The players had to sweat a lot in the Cologne Strassenkicker Base. After the group stage, it transitioned to a regular tournament tree where players had to play two games per encounter. The goal result from both games then decided the victory.
Favorites fail in the round of 16
Before that, masses of favorites had been eliminated in the round of 16: defending champion Dylan “Dullenmike” Neuhausen, world champion Umut “Umut” Gültekin, Levy “levyfinn” Finn and Mustafa “Musti” Cankal only ended up in the top 16.
Umut’s elimination was particularly surprising: after a 4-1 defeat in the first game, newcomer Jonas “Jonny” Wirth caught up and defeated the world champion 5-1 in the second game. In the quarter-finals, Jonny had a clear 9:2 in both games against the previously strong Timo “TimoX” Siep. Only finalist Radelja stopped the only 17-year-old from SC Paderborn 07 in the semifinals.