Dave Bytheway, #TeamDSM’s Esports Manager has been with the team for over 3 years now, overseeing key projects across two of our business verticals: Esports and Live Production. Representing not only Brandon Smith and Richard Buckley, and various professional FIFA players, Dave also acts as the representative of the eLions squad, on behalf of The FA working closely with FIFA, EA and other National Teams.
The following article, written by Dave provides a deep analysis and summary of how DSM has worked with the eLions and how the squad has performed across the past year, providing a unique perspective of the inner working of this unique Client Account.
WHO ARE THE ELIONS?
If you aren’t familiar with the eLions, you should be – they are a squad of 4 professional FIFA players that represent their nation on the grandest of stages in the Esport, The eLions squad consists of Thomas Leese, Tekkz, Mitch Hayward and BigMac. Tom and Tekkz are well-known names in the FIFA community and have been two of the most successful players in the world over the past 2 years. Mitch and BigMac are still at the early point in their careers but have demonstrated a clear level of talent that shows they belong at the top.
THE ELIMINATOR
The early part of the year was focused on recruitment and expanding the eLions squad from two to four players. The eLiminator tournament was devised to give everyone in the FIFA community a chance to represent England and become an eLion, with two Xbox and two PlayStation spots up for grabs.
The tournament was spread across two 8 hour days and all player games were shown on Twitch with the later stages also being broadcast across Facebook each day. Tom and Tekkz retained their status as eLions and were joined by Mitch Hayward and BigMac who both provided a few shock results against higher seeded players to take the remaining two places.
Overall, the broadcast performed very well, averaging 1,915 viewers on Twitch across the two days which was a record for the channel. The peak concurrent viewers was 4,894 and we totalled an impressive 35,873 and 47,264 total live viewers across the two days. Finally, the following of the channel also increased by 4,912. In total, the tournament received over 1 million views on all platforms.
EFRIENDLIES, PRESENTED BY LG
Once we had our squad of four, all focus turned towards the FIFAe Nations series, with the online qualifiers taking place in June. Before that, the eLions had a chance to climb up the rankings to gain a higher seeding by playing in eFriendlies. Overall, eight eFriendlies, presented by LG, were played against Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Romania, Scotland, Italy, France and Sweden with the eLions picking up five wins and losing three.
These results ended with England impressively receiving a top seed going into the online qualifiers.
All eFriendlies were broadcast on the England Twitch channel with a total of 129,181 live views.
FIFAe NATIONS ONLINE QUALIFIERS
For the online qualifiers, a squad of four needed to be narrowed down to two. The decision was made amongst the squad that the pairing of Tom and Tekkz would be the two players going on to play in the qualifiers due to them both being the highest-ranked players in the squad. Tom and Tekkz battled their way through the group stages on day one ending up in second and progressing through to the knockout stages.
On day two, the eLions came to life and peaked at the right time. In the last 16, England faced Bulgaria, winning 7-2 overall. The quarter-finals saw the eLions face off against the Netherlands, who were one of the best teams in the world at that time. Tom won 4-2 against Levi de Weerd who had become somewhat of a rival for Tom during the FIFA 21 season. Tekkz, unfortunately, lost his match up which meant Tom had to face off against Levi again in a crucial decider. Tom rose to the challenge and won 4-0 sending England through to the semi-finals!
In the semi-finals, England faced off against the dark horses of the tournament, Finland. Tom managed to win 5-2 and Tekkz won 3-1, setting up a final match against rivals Germany.
This time it would be Tekkz facing off against a familiar foe in DullenMike, who famously took Tekkz’s crown of being the youngest player to ever win an EA major trophy. Tekkz came out on top this time, with a 2-0 win. Tom, in his usual style, remained calm and composed and went on to win 3-1 meaning England were the winners of the European online qualifier and shooting them to number one in the FIFA rankings.
FIFAe NATIONS
Everything up until this point had led to this moment. The FIFAe Nations. The players had all worked incredibly hard to earn the number one seed going into the tournament and had prepared for everything that could come their way, except the new arch-nemesis Covid. Unfortunately, the tournament that was due to take place in Copenhagen was cancelled, for the second year running, less than a month before the event was meant to take place. This was devastating to everyone. The eLions, The FA and us at DSM. It was a sad end to the FIFA 21 season but understandable given the global pandemic and travel restrictions
ENGLAND CAMP
As soon as the FIFA 21 season came to an end, the planning for FIFA 22 started. The early part of the calendar year saw the eLions travel up to St. George’s Park to film some creative content with the England players during the Men’s international camp. A new content series was created where each eLion would be partnered up with an England player for the Assist Kings series. So far, we’ve had Tekkz, Tom and Connor face off against the likes of Jack Grealish, Bukayo Saka, Mason Mount, Declan Rice and four other first-team players who will feature in the upcoming pieces.
At the time of writing this the content so far has generated 382k views
ELIONS ROOM
Over recent months, work has been going on behind the scenes to find a home for the eLions at Wembley Stadium Connected by EE. The space would allow the players to play, stream and create content. After moving around a couple of times, the perfect room was found, and the work has now started towards kitting out the room for all their needs.
PLAY INS
There have been some big changes in the competition rules for the FIFA 22 season, most notably, the move to a 2v2 ruleset.
FIFA now have four stages to the FIFAe Nations that goes in this order:
Play Ins
Online Qualifiers
Playoffs
FIFAe Nations
The Play In format has two divisions. You can be relegated and promoted and after four weeks of playing, the number one ranked team will automatically qualify for the playoffs, meaning they skip the online qualifiers.
The first of the Play Ins took place in the middle of December, with the squad against having to be narrowed down from four to two. Tom and Tekkz were the two eLions selected for the Play Ins and had to adapt to playing together as opposed to individually.
Unfortunately, the December Play Ins didn’t quite go to plan with England finishing 7th in the
group meaning they will be relegated to division two. One of the contributing factors was the FIFA esports calendar scheduling as the eLions had a busy period of 1v1 qualifiers taking place in the lead up making it difficult to focus on 2v2 preparation, so we will be looking to do more 2v2 bootcamps with the squad this year to help with this.
The best is yet to come from this squad, as they look to improve in 2022.
SUMMARY
2021 was a difficult year for everyone but there are some proud moments that we can all take away from the eLions’ journey. To finish the FIFA 21 season as the number one ranked nation in the world, to building a home for the players at Wembley. The character of the players and everyone involved with the eLions was tested during 2021, but we all worked through it and contributed towards what was a year of progress with the eLions, despite us not being able to compete at eNations. All focus now is on getting to the final this summer!
#TeamDSM
If you are interested in learning more about FIFA Esports, or think DSM can help you in this space, please contact us here.