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PSG.Vitality will play the 2026-2027 season of EA Sports FC 27 with two players, the Dutch Levi de Weerd and the Italian HHezerS, and with Johann "ManiiKa" Simon staying on for one more season as manager and coach. Team Vitality and Paris Saint-Germain Esports presented the line-up in a joint press release on Thursday, September 24, 2026.
PSG.Vitality is the EA Sports FC team that the French organization Team Vitality and the esports arm of the Paris soccer club have run together for a year. The release presents the new season as the follow-up to a first year of that collaboration, and names four competitions the pair will aim for: France's eLigue 1, the FC Pro Open, the eChampions League and the Esports World Cup.
The announcement comes days after the start of EA's competitive season. The FC Pro 27 calendar opened on September 21 with its first online ladder, and the first in-person qualifier is due in London in November.
Team Vitality and Paris Saint-Germain Esports press release, September 24, 2026.
Two players and one manager
An EA Sports FC team is not a squad of five or eleven. The game is played one against one, each player controlling a whole soccer team, so an esports club fields individual players who enter competitions under its colors. PSG.Vitality's line-up for the new season is two players, backed by a manager who also coaches them.
The release gives each of them a short profile. Levi de Weerd is 22 and Dutch. HHezerS, whose name is Lucio Vecchione, is 26 and Italian. ManiiKa is 33. The release describes him as a legendary former player of the EA FC scene and a former Paris Saint-Germain Esports player, and says he returns for one more season as manager and coach of the section.
Related readThe MongolZ bench DarkMeister and tikuak, leaving three active players| Name | Role | Age and nationality | Background in the release |
|---|---|---|---|
| Levi de Weerd | Player | 22, Netherlands | Team Gullit from 15, Ajax Esports from 2022 |
| HHezerS | Player | 26, Italy | Formerly Ninjas in Pyjamas |
| ManiiKa | Manager and coach | 33 | Former player, including for PSG Esports |
Team Vitality and Paris Saint-Germain Esports, September 24, 2026.
The release names no departure from last season's line-up and does not say who played for PSG.Vitality in its first year. It presents the two players as the team's roster for the season that is starting.
Levi de Weerd, a Dutch title winner
De Weerd's career runs through two Dutch organizations. According to the release, he joined Team Gullit at 15. In 2022 he moved to Ajax Esports to play the eDivisie, the Dutch league of the game, while continuing to represent Team Gullit in international competition. Team Liquid acquired Team Gullit in 2025, and he stayed with that structure.
His record in the Netherlands is the first line of his profile. He won the eDivisie three seasons in a row, in 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24. On EA's own circuit he finished third at the FC Pro Open in 2025 and again in 2026, and third at the FC Pro World Championship in 2025.
The release also lists a French result. In 2026, De Weerd reached the final of the eLigue 1, the French league of the game, playing for ESTAC. That gives him experience of the competition PSG.Vitality name first among their targets.
His last world championship ended earlier. EA's review of the FC Pro World Championship 26, published on July 29 after the event in Paris, records that he lost 7-6 to DFernandes in the round of 24. That event, held as part of the Esports World Cup, brought together 36 players for a prize pool of more than US$1 million, according to EA. For FC Pro 27, EA describes a world championship that starts with a league stage of six pools in which the top eight go straight to the round of 16 and the players placed ninth to 24th meet in a round of 24 for the remaining places.
Related readAstralis bench HooXi and jabbi days after a title in BarcelonaHHezerS, two eChampions League finals
HHezerS arrives from a different route. The release describes him as a former player of Ninjas in Pyjamas, and lists an Italian championship in 2024 and a European title among his results, without giving the year of the latter.
The eChampions League, a competition in which players represent soccer clubs, is where he has come closest to a major title. The release records a second place in 2023 and a final in 2026. EA's review of the 2026 finals, published on May 28, describes that last one. HHezerS, then representing Hellas Verona, beat DFernandes 5-3 in the quarterfinal and Alihanlion 6-1 in the semifinal in Budapest, before losing the grand final 3-2 to Vejrgang. He scored in the 54th and 71st minutes to come back from two goals down, and Vejrgang went back in front a few minutes later. EA notes that his only earlier final, in 2023, had been lost to Emre Yilmaz.
The world championship in Paris went further for him than for De Weerd. In EA's review, HHezerS beat AbuMakkah 6-4 in the round of 16 and then lost 12-5 to Bonanno in the quarterfinal. The release counts that as a top-eight finish, the same result it gives him at the FC Pro 26 Open. RvPLegend10 won the title, beating levyfinn 6-5 in the grand final.
A second season in Paris colors
The two organizations frame the line-up as a step in a longer project. In the release, Fabien "Neo" Devide, chief executive of Team Vitality, says the first year allowed the two partners to lay the foundations of PSG.Vitality, and sets the aim of making it an esports brand of reference worldwide. Nadia Benmokhtar, whom the release titles director of diversification and CRO chief of staff, says the ambition is to build highly competitive teams able to aim for the biggest titles.
Related readBetBoom field FL4MUS and zorte as stand-ins at three LAN eventsThe team's appearance stays close to the soccer club's. As in the previous season, PSG.Vitality's players wear the Paris Saint-Germain home shirt for 2026-2027 with the PSG.Vitality badge. The release describes it as royal blue, with a wide red central band edged by thin white lines that continues onto the back, and says it was unveiled in May 2026.
How the FC Pro 27 season works
EA's own circuit is called FC Pro, and its FC Pro 27 season sets the calendar the two players enter. EA laid it out in a deep dive published on August 27, 2026.
- Online ladderFrom September 21 to October 3, 2026, in Ultimate Team; 1,376 players advance across ten regions.
- Regional qualifiersOctober 10 and 11, 2026; 52 players go through.
- Global qualifierNovember 5 to 7 in London, 64 players: the 52 qualifiers and 12 invited players. Sixteen advance.
- FC Pro Open24 players from November 30, 2026, with the finals on January 25, 2027. The eight quarterfinalists earn a world championship invitation.
- World ChampionshipThe season finale, 36 players, US$1,000,000 in prize money.
The FC Pro Open is the competition De Weerd has finished third in twice. Its 24 players are the 16 who come through the global qualifier and eight invited players. They play in four groups of six; the winner of each group earns a world championship seat and goes straight to the last eight of the finals, the second and third also go on to the finals, and the finals are a single-elimination bracket of twelve.
Below the groups, the stakes continue: the fourth-placed player of each group returns to the global qualifier the following season, and the fifth and sixth start the path again from the beginning.
A second route runs through the FC Pro Open Cups. EA plans three of them, with online ladders from October 29 to November 3, December 15 to 20 and January 11 to 16, and playoffs on November 21 and 22, January 2 and 3, and February 6 and 7. They award Circuit Points, and the best earners of each region qualify for the Play-Ins: six places each for Europe West and Europe East, two for each of the other eight regions.
Related readBetBoom start the Cologne Major without S1ren as d1Ledez steps inThe world championship has 36 places. Eight come from the FC Pro Open. The rest are decided through the Play-Ins, a 64-player qualifying event to which the three FC Pro Open Cups send 28 players, and through the partner league routes whose seats EA sets in its event rules. EA spreads US$2,500,000 across its own six events, a total that leaves out the prize pools of partner leagues and licensed events.
EA's deep dive says FC Pro works with some of the most prestigious soccer leagues to run FC Pro League competitions, and that these may award world championship or Play-In seats, with the partners to be named later. The deep dive names none of them. The eLigue 1 and the eChampions League that PSG.Vitality target sit beside EA's own Open in the release's list.
What comes next
The release gives no dates for PSG.Vitality's first matches and does not say which events each player will enter. The FC Pro calendar gives the first fixed points: the ladder closes on October 3, the regional qualifiers follow on October 10 and 11, and the global qualifier opens in London on November 5.
The Esports World Cup, the last of the four targets the release names, held the FC Pro World Championship 26 in Paris, which EA reviewed on July 29. For the eLigue 1 and the eChampions League, the release names the competitions without giving their new calendars.
ManiiKa's role is set for one season, by the release's own wording. The two players start a season in which the circuit's main prize, the world championship, comes at the end of a path that begins this autumn.
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