Delay Sports Berlin: How Elias Nerlich and Sidney Friede Changed Amateur Football
It was an experiment that many dismissed as a gimmick. A streamer and an injured ex-professional found a football club in Berlin, let their online community choose the name, colours and badge, and entered the eleventh tier of German football. Three years later, Delay Sports Berlin play in the Bezirksliga, have more Instagram followers than Hertha BSC and Union Berlin combined, draw over 2,000 spectators to amateur league matches and have just acquired the former grounds of FC Viktoria Berlin. Th
It was an experiment that many dismissed as a gimmick. A streamer and an injured ex-professional found a football club in Berlin, let their online community choose the name, colours and badge, and entered the eleventh tier of German football. Three years later, Delay Sports Berlin play in the Bezirksliga, have more Instagram followers than Hertha BSC and Union Berlin combined, draw over 2,000 spectators to amateur league matches and have just acquired the former grounds of FC Viktoria Berlin. The experiment has long since become something much more permanent.
Who is behind Delay Sports?
Delay Sports Berlin was founded on 12 July 2021 by Elias Nerlich and Sidney Friede, together with a circle of close friends and an enormous online community that was part of the project from day one.
Elias Nerlich, known by his streaming aliases Eligella and EliasN97, is one of the most successful German-language Twitch streamers in the country. Football has always been his greatest passion. As a youth player he represented Tennis Borussia Berlin, Reinickendorfer Füchse and Tasmania Berlin, before joining sixth-tier RSV Waltersdorf 09 as a senior. A serious injury forced him to stop at 22. The idea of founding his own club and playing again never left him.
Sidney Friede is the second pillar of the project. A highly promising youth player at Hertha BSC and a member of German junior national teams, his professional career was cut short by a knee injury. He turned to streaming, built a significant following online and joined immediately when Nerlich proposed the idea. In the very first competitive match in the club's history, a cup tie against Traber FC in the summer of 2022, Sidney Friede scored the first goal in Delay Sports history.
The name has a story
Delay Sports is not a random combination of words. The name merges the English word "delay" with the phonetics of EA Sports, the developer behind the FIFA video game series, and nods to the connection problems and latency issues that online gamers know and hate. The name, the club colours and the badge were all chosen by Nerlich and Friede's community in a vote. The badge itself was designed by a follower. As it has been with Delay Sports from the start: the fans are not an audience, they are co-creators.
From the eleventh tier to the Bezirksliga: three promotions in three seasons
The 2022/23 season was the club's first in existence. Delay Sports started in the Kreisliga C, the eleventh tier of German football, and won the title immediately. 18 matches, 18 wins. The club claims to have set a record for the division. Over 2,000 spectators attended the decisive title match, a figure that is unheard of at this level.
2023/24: promotion from Kreisliga B, again as champions.
2024/25: promotion from Kreisliga A, again as champions. At the end of the season, a place in the Bezirksliga Berlin, the eighth tier, was secured.
During 2024/25, a match against the second team of BSV Al-Dersimspor, which included former German international Max Kruse, made national headlines when the game was abandoned due to on-pitch fighting and a police intervention. And in the Berlin state cup, Delay Sports reached the last 16, where they took a lead and the opposition had a player sent off before eventually losing 1:3 to Regionalliga side Hertha Zehlendorf.
Overall record since founding: 82 matches, 81 wins, one defeat. A record that is without comparison in German amateur football.
Their own ground for the future
In the summer of 2025, Delay Sports took over the former FC Viktoria Berlin site at Wildspitzweg. Plans include a dedicated stadium, a modern sports hall and an event centre that brings football and community together. The club is growing not just on the pitch but as an organisation, a brand and a community.
The reach is real: over 540,000 people follow Delay Sports on Instagram, around 173,000 on YouTube. Nerlich and Friede exceed these numbers individually with their personal channels. That visibility attracts players who would never normally consider a Bezirksliga club, and turns every home match day into a media event.
Log Delay Sports matches in the Ground Hoppers App
Delay Sports is exactly what groundhopping stands for: a club with a story to tell, that draws crowds, and that brings a different energy to every home game. Attending a Delay Sports match means experiencing Berlin amateur football with an atmosphere most lower-league clubs could never generate.
And every visit deserves to be documented. In the Ground Hoppers App you can add and manage every Delay Sports match yourself, directly and comfortably, even if the club is not yet in an established database. No detours, no complications: enter the ground, the date, the opponent and the score, check in when you arrive and have the visit permanently saved in your personal groundhopping statistics.
That is one of the key advantages of the Ground Hoppers App over other solutions: every match is addable, regardless of whether it is Bundesliga or Bezirksliga, whether it is a household name or a rising newcomer like Delay Sports. Your collection, your rules.
You will also find nearby matches, watch your statistics grow, check in at every ground and connect with other groundhoppers who have Delay Sports on their list too.
Download now:
Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/ground-hoppers-app/id6761360137
Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.groundhoppers.mobile
Why Delay Sports is more than an influencer project
The most common criticism of Delay Sports is that it is nothing more than a marketing stunt with no connection to real football. That criticism does not hold up to scrutiny.
Elias Nerlich plays on the pitch himself. Sidney Friede has played from day one, scores important goals and trains regularly. The team has won three league titles in three years. The club has built proper infrastructure, acquired its own ground and is planning long term. Members maintain the facilities, run youth football and build club culture.
Delay Sports proves that reach and sporting substance are not mutually exclusive. The reach enables investment that a conventional amateur club could never afford. And the sporting success gives the reach credibility.
The project also demonstrates what is possible in German amateur football when someone with passion, resources and community thinking starts from the very bottom. For groundhoppers, it is an open invitation: come to Berlin, watch a home match, and experience what happens when amateur football and the digital world collide in 2025.
