Manchester City Beat Leeds United to Win the ePremier League 2026

Manchester City beat Leeds United 8-6 on aggregate on March 30 to win the ePremier League 2026, with Matías "Bonanno" Bonanno and João Afonso "jafonsogv" Vasconcelos sealing the club's fourth title in the EA Sports FC competition. Vasconcelos won the first leg 3-2 against Jacob "NiKSNEB" Benskin, and Bonanno closed out the second leg 5-4 against Leeds' Donovan "Tekkz" Hunt after the tie went to extra time, with the aggregate score level at 5-5 before the two sides played on.

The final carried extra weight for both sides of the server: Tekkz, the ePremier League's defending champion, had left Manchester City for Leeds United before the season began, making Sunday's final his first FC Pro meeting with his former teammate Bonanno since the move. The win also booked both Manchester City players a place at the FC Pro 26 World Championship at the Esports World Cup in July.

Results reported by EA Sports FC Pro, England, March 30, 2026.

A final decided in extra time

Jafonso's 3-2 win over NiKSNEB in the first leg gave Manchester City a one-goal cushion heading into the second, before Bonanno and Tekkz's leg produced enough goals on both sides to level the tie at 5-5 on aggregate before the full-time whistle. With the aggregate score level, the second leg went to extra time, where Bonanno's side of the match finished 5-4, enough to seal an 8-6 aggregate win for Manchester City across the full two-leg final.

Tekkz's return to Manchester City, under a different badge

Tekkz's move from Manchester City to Leeds United before the 2026 season set up Sunday's final as a direct rematch with his former club, and specifically with Bonanno, his one-time teammate on City's title-winning rosters. Leeds' run to the final, built heavily around Tekkz's individual performances in the rounds before, fell just short of denying the defending champion's former organization a repeat title, with Hunt now searching for his first trophy away from the club where he built his reputation.

Manchester City's path to a fourth title

Manchester City topped its group to qualify directly for the knockout rounds, then beat Nottingham Forest 7-3 in the quarterfinals, with Bonanno winning his leg 2-1 and Jafonso his 5-2, before a near-total domination of Tottenham Hotspur in the semifinal, an 11-1 aggregate win built on a 5-0 Bonanno leg and a 6-1 Jafonso leg. That semifinal margin, the widest of the knockout rounds for either eventual finalist, gave Manchester City's run to the final a dominance the eventual 8-6 scoreline against Leeds did not fully reflect.

Leeds United's harder road, led by Tekkz's penalties

Leeds United needed a 7-6 aggregate win over Chelsea in the quarterfinals, split between a loss for NiKSNEB and a win for Tekkz, before a far tighter semifinal against Sunderland that finished level on aggregate and went to a penalty shootout, which Tekkz won 4-3 by converting all four of his own attempts and saving one from Sunderland's Paulo Neto. That shootout heroics, arriving immediately before the final itself, gave Tekkz a run of individual brilliance across the back half of the tournament that ultimately wasn't enough to overcome Manchester City's own strength over two legs in the final.

Bonanno's long run at one club

Matías Bonanno's arrival at Manchester City came after he had already won eLa Liga with Real Betis, bringing a domestic Spanish title with him as he set out to replicate that success in English esports. His tenure since has included a previous unbeaten ePremier League title alongside Tekkz, decided by a last-minute goal in a final against Brighton, before Sunday's win extended a run he has since called the longest he has ever spent with a single club. Manchester City confirmed a new contract extension for Bonanno the previous September, with the player saying at the time that he wanted to help defend the ePremier League title for a third straight season, a target Sunday's result fulfilled on schedule.

What the win means for both clubs' server presence

Manchester City's fourth ePremier League title, its third in a row, extends the club's run as the competition's dominant force even as its roster continuity, built around Bonanno's three straight titles, faces an eventual turnover the way Tekkz's own departure already reshaped Leeds United's side of the bracket. Leeds' runner-up finish, achieved in Tekkz's first season with the club, gives the Yorkshire organization a signature result to build on even without the trophy, with Tekkz's semifinal shootout performance in particular showing the kind of individual quality that persuaded Leeds to sign him away from City in the first place.

Jafonso's already-proven big-stage pedigree

João Afonso "jafonsogv" Vasconcelos arrived at Sunday's final with an Esports World Cup title already on his résumé, having won the first-ever EWC EA Sports FC tournament in 2024, a $1 million event he has since called the defining, "life-changing" moment of his career. That prior big-stage success gave Manchester City's pairing a second player with genuine major-trophy experience to go alongside Bonanno's own run of domestic titles, a combination the club's consistency at the top of the ePremier League over recent seasons reflects directly.

Qualification stakes beyond the trophy

Beyond the title itself and a share of the £30,000 winner's prize from the competition's £100,000 pool, Sunday's result sent both Bonanno and Jafonso to the FC Pro 26 World Championship at the Esports World Cup in July, giving Manchester City's pairing a direct route to the sport's biggest individual event of the year. Leeds United's finalists, Tekkz and NiKSNEB, qualified for a separate international competition through their own run, meaning both finalists left the ePremier League with international football still ahead of them regardless of Sunday's result.

A format that keeps attacking players in the spotlight

Both legs of Sunday's final were built around a single attacking matchup rather than a full squad battling across the pitch, with Jafonso and NiKSNEB deciding the first leg and Bonanno and Hunt the second, meaning every goal in the final traced back to one of just four individual players across the full tie. That structure, two one-on-one matches rather than a broader team contest, put an unusually direct spotlight on each player's individual form compared to the way credit might be spread across a larger roster in other esports formats.

A competition built around Premier League clubs

The ePremier League pairs each Premier League club with two FC Pro players competing in a two-legged knockout format once the group stage narrows the field, giving the competition a structure that mirrors the aggregate-score format familiar from the clubs' own European football competitions. That two-leg structure meant Manchester City's one-goal cushion from the first leg carried directly into the second, with the aggregate score, not either individual leg's result, deciding when extra time was needed and ultimately who lifted the trophy.

A final that previewed the summer ahead

Both Manchester City players and both Leeds United players left Sunday's final with international football still to come later in the year, with Bonanno and Jafonso heading to the FC Pro World Championship in July and Hunt and Benskin's own qualification setting up further meetings between players who had just spent an entire afternoon trying to eliminate each other domestically. That overlap, direct domestic rivals also representing their respective paths at international events months later, gave the ePremier League's results an afterlife well beyond the trophy handed out on the day itself.

What comes next

The EA Sports FC Pro calendar continues toward its international summer events, with Manchester City's pairing carrying their domestic title and World Championship qualification into the rest of the season. Leeds United's Tekkz, now the runner-up in his first ePremier League campaign away from Manchester City, has already shown the individual form to make his new club a contender again, while the rivalry between him and his former teammate Bonanno looks likely to continue well beyond Sunday's final.

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