It should not be. Yet once more. In the MMC Studios Vienna last weekend, Austria Wien once once more missed two titles by a hair’s breadth and was runner-up twice. A sensational result, but the disappointment was huge.
On Saturday, the individual competition with a total of 64 participants – five players from each of the twelve Bundesliga teams and four starters from the eBundesliga without team affiliation – was on the program in 16 groups. In addition to the two FIFA professionals Marcel Holy and Maxi Mayrhofer, Mohammad Khalil, Moritz Kalchbrenner and Dominik Pils also started for the violets.
Strong runs from Maxi & Marcel
Marcel Holy, who celebrated a remarkable 13:1 victory (!) in the group phase, asserted himself with a maximum of nine points and Maxi Mayrhofer was also the first to go into the knockout phase with seven points. Moritz Kalchbrenner was eliminated with six points, level on points with two other opponents, only because of the goal difference and Mohammad Kahlil was only two goals short of promotion. Unfortunately, Dominik Pils didn’t have a chance in the group phase.
From the sixteenth final, each matchup was played in a first and second leg. Holy beat David Jesic (Austria Klagenfurt) with a total score of 13:0, Mayrhofer narrowly beat Pascal Lackner (Admira) 6:5. In the round of 16, the purple summer newcomer had no trouble once morest his former colleague Fabio Özelt (Salzburg) and made it into the quarterfinals 10:4. Holy did the same with a 6:5 once morest Yigit Yilmaz (Salzburg).
In the round of the last eight, Mayrhofer was able to afford a 2:3 in the second leg once morest Heinz Knapp (Admira) following his 5:1 success in the first duel to advance to the semi-finals. Holy, on the other hand, had to admit defeat to an old acquaintance, Filip Babic, who played for the Violets in the team competition. However, due to scheduling problems, the veteran was unable to take part in Austria’s singles qualification and instead played singles for Sturm Graz.
Bitter finale for Maxi
Mayrhofer also held up the purple flag in the individual competition and beat Babic with a total score of 7:4 to advance to the grand final. As in the previous year, Babic (then playing for Austria Wien) was waiting there for Ajdin Islamovic (eBundesliga), who defeated Nico Prankratz (Austria Klagenfurt) 5:4 in the semifinals.
Islamovic won the first leg 3-1, in the second leg Maxi Mayrhofer won 2-2, but in the end it was “only” enough for second place. Nevertheless, Maxi had honestly earned the prize money of 1,500 euros.