St. Louis CITY SC eMLS Player Wins Virtual Soccer Championship

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St. Louis CITY SC eMLS player Niklas Raseck captured the 2023 championship in Austin this past weekend.

Sixty-eight minutes into the eMLS Cup semifinals, Niklas "NR7" Raseck seemed in control. He held a comfortable 2-0 lead in the game, and seemed a shoo-in to continue to the championship. This was nothing new. At 24, Raseck, St. Louis CITY SC's virtual FIFA player, has won a German championship, qualified for the world cup and competed competitively for 10 years.

Then the momentum shifted.

In a matter of seven minutes, his opponent, the first-seeded Ehsan "Lamps" Zakeri of Minnesota United, scored two goals. The crowd of 1,500 at Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater roared — and Lamps motioned for them to grow even louder. 

Raseck stared at the computer screen with his head tilted.

Tied game.

But there were still 15 minutes left. Lamps and NR7 traded possessions back and forth. No one got a shot off. Until 90 minutes, just seconds away from the finish — when Raseck corralled the ball in the box and took a shot. Blocked. But it trickled out to Raseck who fired a ball screaming past the goalie into the top right corner of the net.

Raseck ripped off his headset, shot up from his seat, hugged his coach and screamed so loud that the microphones picked up every word. “LET’S GO! LET’S GO! LET’S GO!” he yelled, pumping his fists while the crowd roared. He sat down, pointed to his veins, hugged his coach again, stood up, looked up at the sky and let out a huge sigh.

CITY pic.twitter.com/JsYw7vzTWD

— Peter Wood (@PeterWood33) March 13, 2023

An hour later, Raseck defeated reigning champion and Atlanta United player Paulo “Paulo Neto” Roberto Xavier de Brito Neto, to capture the 2023 eMLS championship and $20,000 in prize winnings.

By the time Raseck secured the eMLS Cup championship, he had no energy left to react. He gave a little fist pump and shook Neto’s hand. In his first season representing CITY SC, Raseck held up the trophy and kissed it as smoke rose around him.

The victory capped off a windy road for CITY SC and Raseck.

CITY SC joined eMLS in 2020, but the program struggled to perform. The team conducted a worldwide search and signed Raseck, a German native, in November 2022. 

Widely considered one of the best FIFA players in the world, Raseck has been a star in virtual FIFA since his first year playing competitively at 14. Since then, Raseck has won multiple international tournaments and earned over $235,000 in prize winnings.

Nearly every team in the MLS has a virtual soccer player — some even have multiple. The players participate in one tournament in January and another in February. The final championship, the eMLS Cup, took place over the weekend to cap off the season.

It has been an up-and-down season for Raseck, who still lives in Germany with his family. He lost in the first round of the first tournament. One month later, he fell in the second round. 

“I felt like in the first two seasons, I was a bit unlucky,” he said after the championship win. “[I lost] games really close. I felt like I could do  better.” 

In this series, he did better. Slated as the four seed out of 26 players, Raseck toughed his way through three formidable opponents before earning the crown of eMLS champion.

Now, Raseck will headed to the next stop: The FIFAe World Cup. 

But not so fast. First, he had to celebrate his win.

“We’re gonna party,” he said. “I won the trophy. It’s the last day for me in the U.S. Then I’m going back to Germany. So we’re gonna celebrate in style.”