Konami Digital Entertainment Inc. has announced today that its popular game eFootball be hosting a major Manchester United-focused competitive campaign. Players around the world will have the chance to compete in order to become the official Manchester United representative in the eFootball Championship 2026.
For interested fans, the online qualifiers for the event are now live for the in-game Club Event “eFootball Championship 2026 Manchester United.” Participating in the event will give players the chance to represent the Red Devils on the global esports stage, which in turn determines the official Manchester United representative for the eFootball Championship 2026.
KONAMI says that in the previous season, 36.3 million players competed in Club Events, with the journey starting all over again this year. All players need to do to have a chance is download eFootball for free and enter the “Match” hub to potentially start your future eFootball legacy.
Two tournaments are slated for fans to compete in: the ’eFootballChampionship 2026 Open’ and the ‘eFootballChampionship 2026 Club Event.’ The former is for all users, and the latter is used to determine each eFootball partnered club’s number one fan. If you manage to succeed in these events, you will be able to compete for the title of ‘World’s Best eFootball player’ at the ‘eFootballChampionship 2026 World Finals’ expected for the summer of 2026.
Surpassing 950 million downloads, the game’s reach has been cemented since its days before its rebranding as PES. In celebration of that fact and to support the current campaign, eFootball has added the Manchester United Club Pack featuring the club’s starting XI, as well as legendary players from the club’s past. Big Time player George Best has been added, along with Epic’s Peter Schmeichel and Bryan Robson.
Spotify Camp Nou in the process of its renovation.
Players can also enjoy a fresh stadium, FC Barcelona’s newly renovated home, Spotify Camp Nou. The stadium is so far only available for mobile players, but PC and console players will soon be able to play a match in the Barcelona icon in a coming update. Using the new stadium, players can experience more of what the game has to offer by participating in the campaign, where daily log-ins and progressing through in-game events can unlock special goal effects and tickets offering the chance to win up to 1,000 in-game coins.
Compete, play, and enjoy yourself in eFootball’s newest campaign, and maybe even try to get that spot representing Manchester United.
Marvel Games and NetEase Games have announced the official launch of the newly established Marvel Rivals Professional League. The award-winning PvP hero shooter Marvel Rivals has gained significant traction across the gaming industry since its release in December 2024.
With an all-time Steam player peak of 642,333, Marvel Rivals has shattered its own records multiple times and has significantly surpassed player counts for other hero shooters such as Overwatch 2 and Apex Legends. In its first month alone, Marvel Rivals peaked at more than 400,000 concurrent players, a level of success that quickly sparked interest from the esports community.
In the past, NetEase organized the Marvel Rivals Championship, which launched in 2024, the game’s release year, and featured a prize pool of approximately $450,000. The newly announced professional league offers increased support for participating teams and an uncapped prize pool of up to $3 million.
The league will include teams from the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the Pacific region and China. This year’s season will be played in three stages. The opening stage runs from May to June, followed by the mid-season finals in August.
Stage two will run from September through October, culminating in the grand finals in late November. Beginning this year, nearly all Ignite Series tournaments, along with the mid-season finals, will serve as qualifiers for the grand finals.
League points will be awarded based on final placements in stage one, the mid-season finals and stage two. Teams can secure a spot at the global finals either by winning the stage two playoffs or by finishing near the top of the overall league standings.
To enhance the competitive experience and support a sustainable development pipeline, the Marvel Rivals Esports team has introduced a promotion and relegation system. Under the new structure, teams can earn points throughout the Marvel Rivals Championship 2026. At both the mid-season finals and the conclusion of the season, top Championship teams will have the opportunity to compete against league teams for an official league position.
This year, NetEase has also collaborated with organizations across regions to launch the Marvel Rivals Esports Partner Teams Program. Selected teams will share revenue from in-game team-themed content and receive comprehensive support. Submission date ends January 15th.
It’s a bit of a distant memory, but remember when that woman on the Arena of Valor team was caught cheating at the 33rd SEA Games? Well, the truth behind the situation is even crazier, bringing the situation back into the spotlight once more.
Back in December 2025, Warasin “Tokyogurl” Naraphat was caught using unauthorized software and having third-party involvement while competing at the SEA Games. After getting caught cheating, Tokyogurl was disqualified (even though Thailand had just lost 0-3 to Vietnam anyway). The rest of the team continued to the Lower Bracket Final, but Thailand ultimately decided to withdraw from the women’s tournament altogether.
Even though Tokyogurl denied any wrongdoing – and even claimed it was due to her being sick and panicking mid-game – it seemed like a pretty cut-and-dry case of cheating and banning. However, it’s now come out that she was, in fact, cheating, but with help from her boyfriend.
In fact, her boyfriend had been playing for her this entire time. Tokyogurl had made it to the SEA Games without ever having played a game by herself.
Tokyogurl’s boyfriend admits to cheating at SEA Games
Tokyogurl’s boyfriend goes by Cheerio. He’s a semi-pro esports player who’s competed in tournaments before, although nothing as big as the SEA Games.
After months of silence, Cheerio took to TikTok to admit he was playing for Tokyogurl at the prestigious international tournament.
“I want to come out and clarify the issues that have happened in the past during the SEA Games period and other competitions, where everyone suspected that a third party was playing in place during several matches. I admit that it’s true,” he confessed.
“I didn’t intend for things to escalate to this point and cause disappointment to many people. I humbly accept all criticism and the consequences that follow, without any excuses.”
After Cheerio’s groveling apology, Tokyogurl shared one of her own: “I’m sorry.”
Not only is Tokyogurl banned from Arena of Valor tournaments, but the President of the Asian Electronic Sports Federation has stated that it’s taking legal action against Cheerio and Tokyogurl. So it’s being taken quite seriously.
Why are dudes so obsessed with beating women in esports?
My initial thought when I learned of Tokyogurl and Cheerio was: Why? I am not quite sure what the benefit of doing something like this is.
But then I thought back to the time the Fortnite community decided to be a transphobic pile of shit after the Milk Cup. The responses were quite telling. Instead of congratulating Vader for not only winning a pretty impressive tournament but finding a community that accepts and supports her, incels all over X accused her of “pretending to be a woman” so she could beat all the girls at the Milk Cup.
And this got me thinking: Subpar, insufferable men that don’t feel worthy of other men due to various shortcomings want to feel better about their lowly status by beating women at random stuff. That’s why they think trans women are doing the same thing: projection. This is their own fantasy, not the fantasy of trans women.
You see men constantly claiming they can beat up a female wrestler or get more points than her at tennis or win a Counter-Strike tournament, and you wonder: “Why is that even on your mind? Why do you care?” Maybe it would make them feel better about themselves to actually have a chance for once in their life. Or maybe they want to prove women aren’t good at things to make themselves feel better about getting constantly rejected. I can’t tell you. But this seems to be a pattern.
Remember Vaevictis eSports, the all-female League of Legends team that competed in the Russian League (LCL) in 2019, emerging without a single win? The team was made up of female players that weren’t even the highest rank in the game and they were all support players. It seemed basically built to fail – and it was. It was a stunt to essentially mock women and point out that they can’t play video games as well as men.
As the insults and think-pieces rolled in, the Vaevictis eSports players were quick to point out that it wasn’t about gender at all.
Former member Anastasiya “HellMa” Pleyko said: “Take five men with diamond rank, put them against these teams, and they play just as bad as we do. I know a lot of women who are better and would have performed better. “
As the harassment and mockery continued, Riot Games disqualified the team for its performance.
The tournament, Legion of Valkyries CS:GO May 2020, required players to have a webcam on. The male player wore a black wig, glasses, and a mask. When he was asked to remove the mask, the tournament organizers immediately saw he was a man.
Despite the blatant disrespect, most people online found this funny. Many joked that he was “transgender” and should have been allowed to compete. Women’s esports are clearly not taken seriously, and men found it funny to make a mockery of the event. I’m assuming he was hoping to wipe all the women in the tournament to prove how much better he was than female CS:GO players. To prove what? I’m not sure. I guess that he’s not a total loser? To prove that he has more skills than other random players in a small tournament?
Beats me.
I don’t know Cheerio and I cannot tell you what his exact line of thinking was when he decided to cheat at the all-female Arena of Valor tournament at the SEA Games. My assumption, however, is that he is unable to reach his esports goals against other men and felt that this was an easy opportunity to win some money and beat competitors while he’s at it.
Again, the team had lost 0-3 against Vietnam while Tokyogurl was “competing.” Guess it wasn’t as much of a free win as Cheerio had thought. But even if it were, now what? He gets to tell people that he failed to beat anyone with the same advantages as him and had to compete against a scene with less support and fewer resources instead?
Congrats??
I’m not here to tell you if men are better at esports or not. I don’t really care. I am shocked that this even occupies a part of their brain at all. I’m shocked that they spend time thinking about how they’d be able to beat random women at a random game.
SSSniperWolf 2.0
Remember SSSniperWolf? She currently makes lazy “reaction” videos while putting on an irritating fake baby voice. And somehow, that’s enough for people to forget where she came from: pretending to play games to bait simps.
Years ago, it came out that she wasn’t playing Call of Duty or any of those games. It was her boyfriend’s gameplay. She wasn’t competing for money, so it wasn’t as career-breaking as it should have been, but I think this also deserves a mention in this article.
Why?
Because her boyfriend was, once again, a jealous, snivvly loser. Compared to Sssniperwolf, nobody was very interested in watching him play. A man playing Call of Duty? Boring. A hot woman playing Call of Duty with her cleavage showing? Subscribe! This concept makes many men salty, even though it’s the same men who subscribe to these women. Make it make sense.
Nobody would watch this dude’s gameplay unless he were a sexy woman. So he agreed to do streams and make content with her. Now, he was helping make money and getting attention. Just like Cheerio would never make it to the SEA Games, but now he could make it to the Games as a cute woman.
The real question is: Who is providing Snoop Dogg with the gaming footage?
Anyway, that’s the end of my rant. At the end of the day, Cheerio apologized and he wasn’t all that great against the other teams at the SEA Games anyway. But I can’t help but think about this continued obsession with these surplus men fantasizing about playing in women’s esports tournaments when nobody is even concerned about this. Just go get therapy between your solo rounds of Fortnite and leave everyone alone.
Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma is known to overreact a bit, so when I saw him going insane on X about an online tournament, I admittedly kept skimming. However, I have since seen multiple people going equally insane over this moment so I had to check it out for myself.
And yeah, it’s insane.
Luigi uses taunt to win intensely close final match
Luigi is a beloved Nintendo character in general, and he’s pretty popular in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well. He has a bit of a cheeky playstyle to match his personality, including the only taunt in the entire series that can damage opponents. This came in handy in a surprising way during an online tournament hosted by Hungrybox.
The matchup between Mario “Waka” Cervantes and Carlos “Sonix” Perez was incredibly close. Both had two wins, meaning this final game would determine the winner. Waka and Sonix had enough damage to get KOd from a well-timed attack. Even the commentators kept saying: “It just takes one grab.”
Sonix landed a pretty good combo that knocked Luigi off the stage. But Waka recovered, mixing it up by landing above Sonix. He landed on him, pulling off a pretty incredible aerial-heavy combo that had Sonic getting knocked all the way to the other side of the stage. At this point, Sonix was struggling to find a way back onto the stage.
Then it happened.
Sonix jumped back up to grab the ledge, but Luigi denied him by taunting. The little, bashful kick connected, turning the screen red as Sonic was blasted off the screen entirely. Luigi won the game with Luigi’s taunt.
Not only was it incredible to see Waka win with such a tricky move to land, but he’d landed it against Sonic, a very fast, avoidant character that everyone hates. And not just any Sonic, but one controlled by Sonix, a top player in the scene.
It was just a crazy moment that was worth Hungrybox’s massive reaction.
After screaming loud enough to damage my ears, Hungrybox fell to the floor, collapsing in disbelief. “Clip that shit, please!” he begged, out of breath.
Meanwhile, Sonix was quite angry that he got taunted to death by a low-tier character. He immediately ended the stream after the KO, leaving Hungrybox’s tournament. It was a salty crash out that only added to the moment.
Being able to time Luigi’s taunt to KO such a talented player was most definitely a moment to remember (and clip). Luigi’s taunt is very slow to start up, and it doesn’t reach very far, making it difficult to hit. However, a successful kick will knock an opponent back quite far no matter their damage.
Said one viewer: “I don’t play Smash anymore, but I’m glad to see Sonic lose.”
With Season 16 live in League of Legends, there seems to be an early meta forming.
Thanks to the changes, Junglers are wanting to clear their camps to progress their quest faster. The natural result is that AP Junglers tend to be easier to clear the jungle with, causing them to be stronger. Throw on top how strong the new LoL item, Dusk and Dawn is, and we are starting to see a pattern forming.
Dusk and Dawn item benefits, synergies, strategies
The Dusk and Dawn item in LoL is positioned to be a more bruiser-like AP Sheen item. It gives players the following benefits:
+70 ability power
+20 ability haste
+25% attack speed
+300 health
Unique – Spellblade: After using an ability, your next basic attack within 10 seconds deals 100% base AD (+ 10% AP) bonus magic damage on-hit and applies on-hit effects twice (1.5 second cooldown, starts after using the empowered attack)
The important part is the Unique Spellblade effect. It is not just a Spellblade, it also reapplies the on-hit effects twice. This is pretty important for a lot of champions. It’s partially why we are starting to see Diana peak as an early jungle meta pick, alongside Gwen, and even Fizz in some instances.
These champions all benefit from the on-hit, with Diana getting her crescent cleave passive when she presses an ability, alongside an attack speed steroid. Gwen, on the other hand, gets to trigger her passive’s central max health shred twice too.
Evelynn also gets some mighty burst thanks to her empowered Whiplash also proccing the on-hit effect, meaning this item performs well. Elise is another option, but much less valuable since it only heals her slightly.
In the top lane, we are also seeing some unlikely interactions. Tahm Kench can take it, and the item gives him two stacks of his passive. With three stacks, he gets to bite, essentially skipping an attack and being able to ult them much sooner.
Yeah the new Dusk and Dawn interaction on Tahm Kench is COMPLETELY FINE and not broken at all!
There are some other items proving quite strong. Bandlepipe is 2k gold and does some insane attack speed steroid, too. It’s proving usable by almost any support for its utility. Some toplaners can even rush it for its inflated stats and the immobilize into AS steroid too. It’s something Darius players are starting to use, for example, in some rare cases.
Another standout meta item appears to be Umbral Glaive, which is a solid second item option for assassin junglers, as they can get a lot of value out of the unseen passive damage proc on it, alongside clearing jungle vision.
The League of Legends Season 16 meta is still developing, but, as it stands, Dusk and Dawn seems to be at the front and center of it.
Tyler "Ninja" Blevins was once the king of Twitch. He still streams today, but he's lost over 98% of his audience since he set a new viewership record in 2018.
