Update: Loughborough Lions ended up finishing second in the tournament, falling to Dutch team Haimon Righ 4-0 in the final.
Original article: The Loughborough Lions and Portsmouth Paladins are set to battle Europe’s best university teams for the Amazon University Esports Masters Rocket League title at this weekend’s playoff finals, hosted by GGTech and NUEL.
They will be competing against six of the best university teams across Europe from Germany, Ireland, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.
The eight highest ranked teams from the group stages will fight it out in the playoffs on Saturday April 30th to earn a spot in Sunday’s grand final on May 1st.
This weekend’s Rocket League playoffs feature the two UK teams alongside two teams from Germany and representatives from Ireland, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands, all of whom will be contending for their share of the €6,000 prize pool.
Loughborough have a strong track record in competitions hosted by GGTech and NUEL, making the last six finals in a row and leaving victorious on four occasions. Meanwhile, Portsmouth are looking to rely on their strong defence to pull them through having conceded the fewest goals of any European university team.
They’ve also been in the news recently, after Portsmouth’s student Rocket League team qualified for the Collegiate World Championship.
David Jackson, NUEL country manager, said:
“It’s set to be an exciting weekend for university esports, bringing together the best teams across Europe to compete. It is good to see such a spread in representation with teams from six countries making the playoffs, helping to showcase the global nature of esports.”
David Jackson, NUEL
“The success of university esports is vital to provide exposure for young people to one of the most exciting, fastest-growing industries in the world. By experiencing playing in this environment, students can see the opportunities esports can bring beyond simply playing games, with all the management, production and media efforts that go into each event.”
Robin Berger (Repi66), player for Uni Esports Dortmund, added: “Competing against teams such as Düsseldorf, Portsmouth or Amsterdam, which are all top teams in the European university Rocket League scene, is just unbelievable.”
He outlined his hopes to build upon his esports career “studying business administration and economics with the goal to join an esports organisation in a management position after my graduation”.
Amazon University Esports Masters, supported by GGTech and UK university esports body NUEL, is produced in collaboration with partners including Riot Games, Intel, as well as Twitch Student which will be broadcasting the playoffs and finals.
In other games in the Amazon University Esports Masters, Bristol and Warwick universities recently took part in the League of Legends tournament.
The finals will be available to watch in English at twitch.tv/uemasters and in Spanish at twitch.tv/universityesportstv.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
