After more than two years, the plan finally worked. The German influencer HandOfBlood, who was still active on YouTube at the time, founded an e-sports team in League of Legends in November 2021: Eintracht Spandau. After a few lean years, the championship in the German Prime League has now worked out, although it didn’t look like it for a long time. The original plan could only be partially implemented; in the end, stars were needed.
That was the plan:
In November 2021, our then LoL expert Alexander Leitsch wrote: Many German fans hoped that the German midlaner “PowerOfEvil” would move to Eintracht Spandau, but he was actually overqualified for the regional league.
Everything you need to know about the LoL team Eintracht Spandau – in 4 minutes
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Eintracht Spandau: Great atmosphere, but there was no great success
That’s how it really went: The “Eintracht Spandau” project went well, but not optimally:
The team was successful in terms of sport, but tended to lose the important matches, which increasingly annoyed HandOfBlood. At the end of a season you usually ended up in second or third place, but you were missing “the trophy to drink from.”
However, the strategy of going through influencers worked completely. The team was present on social media and was able to inspire a lot of fans, even with HandOfBlood in the role of the difficult team president boy.
HandOfBlood repeatedly stages scandals about the egomaniacal fictional character “President Knabe”, who became the villain in the story about “Eintracht Spandau”, senselessly shooting out money, losing control in interviews or insulting the fans. The spectators loved the spectacle surrounding “the president.”
Even the competition had to admit that Eintracht Spandau became the driving force of the Prime League, while other teams had major financial problems. A team from Berlin was even forced to relegate from the league in September 2022. It couldn’t sustain itself financially.
The idea of running Eintracht Spandau like a football club excited the fans. But the plan to bring in 5 players and stick with them failed due to sporting reality, as the team had to admit over time.
Eintracht Spandau is getting the best players on the market before the season
This was the current season: After a few disappointments, Eintracht Spandau increasingly turned away from the plan to develop their own players.
Before the current spring season, Eintracht put together pretty much the best team you could have in the Prime League. Of the 5 players with whom Eintracht Spandau started 2021, not a single one is still in the team today.
In fact, two years after the fans wanted it, they were able to sign PowerOfEvil, a man of international standard. Eintracht Spandau has also strengthened itself well in the other positions and brought in the player who became MVP of the league in the summer of 2023: Johannes “fun K3y” Werner.
Weak season with an outstanding final in the play-offs
Despite the strong squad, the season was pretty bumpy: Eintracht Spandau only finished fifth in the regular season with 11-7 and had to start the playoffs in the Loser’s Bracket.
Here, however, they fought their way through the four better-placed teams and were ultimately able to beat SK in the final.
Eintracht Spandau celebrates the victory with a train through Spandau
This is how Eintracht celebrated: As you can see in the video from HandOfBlood, the fans celebrated Eintracht’s victory in Berlin.
Even “the guy who usually complains” kept quiet this time, says HandOfBlood.
What are the reactions? The Twitch streamer NoWay, who usually likes to gossip about Eintracht because they bought their place in the Prime League, is impressed with his congratulations. The run was incredible. The team has improved from series to series.
He is looking forward to the Masters.
At Eintracht itself, it’s another celebration on social media, although you don’t need a special reason for it anyway. The atmosphere is always good there.
More about HandOfBlood:
HandOfBlood reports what it was like to suddenly have to pay salaries as an influencer: “Since then, a lot has been a compromise”