German football Bundesliga Borussia Dortmund

Borussia Dortmund German sports club Full name Ballspiel Verein Borussia
History Entry to the Bundesliga First national title The Oberliga West, a first division league which included Borussia, dominated German football through the late 50s. In 1949 Borussia reached the final in Stuttgart against VfR Mannheim, which they lost 2–3 after extra time. The club claimed its first national title in 1956 with a 4–2 against Karlsruher SC. One year later, Borussia won with exactly the same team their second national title. After this coup the three Alfredo (Alfred Preißler, Alfred Kelbassa and Alfred Niepieklo) were legends in Dortmund. In 1963 Borussia Dortmund won the last final before the Bundesliga started. It was their third national title.

Borussia Dortmund In 1962, the DFB met in Dortmund and voted to finally establish a professional football league in Germany to begin play in August 1963 as the Bundesliga. Borussia earned its place among the first sixteen sides to play in the new league by winning the last pre-Bundesliga championship. Losing club Köln also earned an automatic berth. It was Dortmund's Friedhelm Konietzka who scored the first-ever Bundesliga goal barely a minute into a match which they would eventually lose 2–3 to Werder Bremen.

Borussia Dortmund In 1965, Dortmund captured its first German Cup. They had a mixed result the next year when they won the European Cup Winners Cup, but surrendered a commanding position atop the Bundesliga by losing four of their last five league games and finishing second, three points behind champions 1860 Munich. Ironically, much of 1860's success came on the strength of the play of Konietzka, recently transferred there from Dortmund. The 70s were characterized by financial problems and relegation from the Bundesliga in 1972 and the opening of the Westfalenstadion, named after its home Land, Westphalia in 1974. The club earned its return to Bundesliga in 1976, but continued to suffer from financial problems through the 80s. BVB narrowly avoided being relegated again in 1986 by winning a third decisive play-off-game against Fortuna Köln after finishing the regular season in 16th place.

Borussia Dortmund in 1993 made it to the UEFA Cup final, which they lost 1–6 on aggregate to Juventus. In spite of this result, Borussia walked away with DM25 million under the prize money pool system in place at the time for German sides participating in the Cup. Cash flush, Dortmund was able to sign players who later brought them a numerous honours later in the 1990s.

They won Bundesliga championships in 1995 and 1996 – with Matthias Sammer from the '96 side being named European Footballer of the Year.

Borussia Dortmund In a memorable 1997 UEFA Champions League Final in Munich, Dortmund faced a Juventus team featuring Zinedine Zidane. Karl-Heinz Riedle put Dortmund ahead shooting under the goalkeeper from a cross by Paul Lambert. Riedle then made it 2 with a bullet header from a corner kick. In the second half, Alessandro Del Piero pulled one back for Juve with a back heel. Then 20-year old substitute and local boy Lars Ricken latched on to a through pass by Andreas Möller. Only sixteen seconds after coming on to the pitch, Ricken chipped Angelo Peruzzi in the Juventus goal from over 20 yards with his first touch of the ball. With Zidane unable to make an impression against Lambert's marking, Borussia lifted the trophy with a 3–1 victory.

Borussia Dortmund then went on to beat Brazilian club Cruzeiro 2–0 in the 1997 Intercontinental Cup Final. The club was founded on 19 December 1909 by a group of young men unhappy with church-sponsored Trinity Youth, where they played football under the stern and unsympathetic eye of the local parish priest. Father Dewald was blocked at the door when he tried to break up the organizing meeting being held in a room of the local pub, Zum Wildschütz. The name Borussia is Latin for Prussia and was taken from the nearby Borussia brewery. The team began playing in blue and white striped shirts with a red sash, and black shorts. In 1913, they donned the black and yellow stripes so familiar today.

Over the next decades the club enjoyed only modest success playing in local leagues. They had a brush with bankruptcy in 1929 when an attempt to boost the club's fortunes by signing some paid professional footballers failed miserably and left the team deep in debt. They survived only through the generosity of a local supporter who covered the team's shortfall out of his own pocket. Borussia Dortmund Full name Ballspiel-Verein Borussia www.bvb.de/
1909 e. V. Dortmund Nickname(s) Die Borussen (The Borussians) Die Schwarzgelben (The Black Yellows) Founded 19 December 1909 Ground Signal Iduna Park (Capacity: 80,720) Chairman Dr. Reinhard Rauball Manager Jürgen Klopp
League Bundesliga 2009–10 Bundesliga, 5th Website Club home page www.bvb.de

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SV Werder Bremen

Bundesliga SV Werder Bremen FC Werder Bremen is a German sports club best known for its association football team playing in Bremen, in the northwest German federal state of the same name. The club was founded on 4 February 1899 as Fußballverein Werder by a group of sixteen vocational high school students who had won a prize of sports equipment to set them on their way. They took their name from the seldom used regional German word for “river peninsula”, describing the riverside field they first played football on. Werder Bremen has grown to 39,100 members.

Werder Bremen have been a mainstay in the Bundesliga, top flight of German football. Bremen have been crowned champions on four occasions and have won the DFB-Pokal on six occasions. Their most recent achievements in these competitions came in 2004, when they won an historic double. Bremen have also tasted European success, beating AS Monaco[6] in the 1992 European Cup Winners' Cup Final, 2–0. Bremen also reached the final edition of the UEFA Cup in 2009, before it was rebranded as the UEFA Europa League, where they met Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk. Shakhtar won the final 2–1 in extra time.
Werder Bremen History Predecessor side SV Werder Bremen played its first ever match on 10 September 1899 against ASC 1898 Bremen coming away with a 1–0 victory. In 1900 FV Bremen was represented at the founding of the German Football Association (DFB) at Leipzig. The club then enjoyed some early success, fielding competitive sides and winning a number of local championships. FV took part in the qualification play for the national championships in playoffs held by the Norddeutscher Fussball Verband (NFV), one of the seven major regional leagues after the turn of the century, but were unable to advance. They became the first club to charge spectators a fee to attend their games and to fence in their playing field.

In April 1914, Werder Bremen became a department of Allgemeiner Bremer Turnverein 1860 and was briefly known as Sportabteilung Werder des ABTV. However, the relationship was short-lived and the club went its own way again less than two months later.

Steady growth after World War I led the club to adopt other sports and, on 19 January 1920, change their name to the current Sportverein Werder Bremen. Football remained their primary interest, so much so that in 1922 they became the first German club to hire a professional coach. The team made regular appearances in year-end NFV qualification round play through the 20's and on into the early 30's, but did not enjoy any success.

German football was re-organized under the Third Reich in 1933 into sixteen first division leagues known as Gauligen and Werder became part of the Gauliga Niedersachsen. The club scored its first real successes, capturing division titles in 1934, 1936, and 1937, and took part for the first time in national level playoff competition. The shape of the Gauligen changed through the course of World War II and in 1939 the Gauliga Niedersachsen was split into two divisions. SV played in the Gauliga Niedersachsen/Nord where they captured a fourth title in 1942. As the war overtook the country, the Gauligen became progressively more local in character. The Gauliga Niedersachsen/Nord became the Gauliga Weser-Ems and then the Gauliga Weser-Ems/Bremen over the next two years. Werder's 1944–45 season was cut short after just two matches.

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Hannover 96 football club

Hannover 96 football club Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896 German association football club Hannover 96 was founded on 12 April 1896 as Hannoverscher Fußball-Club 1896, upon the suggestion of Ferdinand-Wilhelm Fricke, founder of the Deutscher FV 1878 Hannover. Their initial enthusiasm was for athletics and rugby; football did not become their primary interest until 1899. Most of the membership of Germania 1902 Hannover became part of 96 in 1902, while others of the club formed Hannoverscher Ballspielverein. In 1913, they merged with Ballverein 1898 Hannovera (formed in the 1905 merger of Fußballverein Hannovera 1898 Hannorver and Hannoverscher BV) to become Hannoverscher Sportverein 1896.

Hannoverscher FC's colours were black-white-green, but they played in blue, while BV played in red. The newly united team kept black-white-green as the club colours, but they chose to take to the field in red, giving the team the nickname Die Roten (en: The Reds). The team's third jersey is in the club's official colours.

The club made regular appearances in the national playoffs through the early 1900s, but were unable to progress past Eintracht Braunschweig, planting the seeds of a rivalry that has survived to this day. HSV continued to field strong sides and make national level appearances on into the 1920s.

Under the Third Reich German football was re-organized into sixteen top-flight leagues in 1933 and Hannover became part of the Gauliga Niedersachsen. They appeared in the country's final rounds in 1935 and sent representatives to the national side the next year. They won their first national championship in 1938 in what was one of the biggest upsets in German football history when they beat Schalke 04, the most dominant side in the country in the era. The two sides played to a 3:3 draw before Hannover prevailed 4:3 in a tension filled re-match. In 1942, the team moved to the newly formed Gauliga Braunschweig-Südhannover.

Like most other German organizations, the club was dissolved after World War II by occupying Allied authorities. A combined local side was assembled in August 1945 and the next month a mixed group of players from Hannover 96 and Arminia Hannover played their first post-war match against a British military team. HSV was later formally re-established as Hannoverscher SV on 11 November 1945 before re-adopting its traditional name on 27 April 1946.

The club resumed league play in 1947 in the first division Oberliga Nord and was relegated, but quickly returned to the top-flight in 1949. Hannover 96's next appearance in a national final would not come until 1954 when they soundly defeated 1. FC Kaiserslautern 5:1. The beaten side included five of the same players who would go on later that year to win Germany's first World Cup in a surprise victory known as the Miracle of Bern.

In 1963, the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional football league, began play with sixteen of the nation's top teams. Hannover played in the Regionalliga Nord (II) that season, but earned promotion to the senior circuit in the following year. The club's advance to the Bundesliga in 1964 was well received as they set a league attendance record in their first year, averaging 46,000 spectators a game.
Hannover 96 played at the upper level for a decade, until finally relegated to the 2nd Bundesliga Nord for the 1974–75 season. They bounced right back, but were again sent down, this time to spend seventeen of the next twenty years in the second tier.

Hannover 96 The club suffered from money problems in the late 70s and again in the early 90s. Then, in 1992, Hannover put together an impressive run that would lead them to the capture of their first DFB-Pokal and help to set their finances right. That run included victories over Bundesliga sides Borussia Dortmund, VfL Bochum, Karlsruher SC, Werder Bremen, and Borussia Mönchengladbach, as they became the first lower division side to win the competition. Hero for the cup winners was goalkeeper Jörg Sievers who made two saves when the semi-final match went to penalties and then scored the winner in his own turn at the spot. In the cup final, he again made two saves when that match was also decided on penalties.

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FC Bayern Munich Football Club

Bundesliga Bayern Munich - FC Bayern München AG FC Bayern Munich (German: Fußball-Club Bayern München, ) The club was founded in 1900 by eleven football players led by Franz John. Although Bayern won its first national championship in 1932, the club was not selected for the Bundesliga at its inception in 1963. In the middle of the 1970s, the club had its period of greatest success, when the famous team led by Franz Beckenbauer won the European Cup three times in a row (1974–76). In recent years they have been by far the most successful team in German football, winning six of the last ten championships. The club's last international title was the Intercontinental Cup in 2001, though they won their fourth European Cup the same year.

FC Bayern Munich Since the beginning of the 2005–06 season, Bayern plays its home games in the Allianz Arena. Previously the team had played in Munich's Olympic Stadium for 33 years. The team colours are red and white, and the team crest shows the colours of Bavaria. Bayern is a membership-based club with 162,187 members. There are also 2,764 officially-registered fan clubs with 192,160 members. The club has other departments for chess, handball, basketball, gymnastics, bowling, table tennis, referees, and senior football with more than 1,100 active members.

From FC Breitnigge to FC Hollywood (1979–98) The 1980s were a period of off-field turmoil for Bayern, with many changes in personnel and financial problems. On the field, Paul Breitner and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, termed FC Breitnigge, led the team to Bundesliga titles in 1980 and 1981. Apart from a DFB-Pokal win in 1982, two relatively unsuccessful seasons followed, after which Breitner retired and former coach Udo Lattek returned. Bayern won the 1984 cup, then went on to win five championships in six seasons, including a double in 1986. However, European success was elusive during the decade; Bayern managed to claim the runners-up spot in the European Cup in 1982 and 1987

Jupp Heynckes was hired as coach in 1987, but after two consecutive championships in 1988–89 and 1989–90 Bayern's form dipped. After a second place in 1990–91 the club finished just five points above the relegation places in 1991–92. In the season of 1992–93, Bayern Munich lost out in the UEFA Cup 2nd round to the (at the time) Premier League team Norwich City, who remain the only English football club to beat them at their former home ground the Olympic Stadium. Success returned when Franz Beckenbauer took over for the second half of the 1993–94 season, winning the Championship again after a four year gap. Beckenbauer was then appointed club president

His successors as coach, Giovanni Trapattoni and Otto Rehhagel both finished trophyless after a season, not meeting the club's high expectations. During this time Bayern's players frequently appeared in the gossip pages of the press rather than the sports pages, resulting in the nickname FC Hollywood. Franz Beckenbauer briefly returned at the end of the 1995–96 season as caretaker coach and led his team to victory in the UEFA Cup 1995–96, beating Bordeaux in the final. For the 1996–97 season Giovanni Trapattoni returned to win the championship. But in the following season Bayern lost the title to the just promoted Kaiserslautern and Trapattoni had to take his leave for the second time. Renewed international success (1998–present) Opened in 2005: the Allianz Arena, one of the world's most modern football stadiums.

From 1998–2004 Bayern were coached by Ottmar Hitzfeld. In Hitzfeld's first season, Bayern won the Bundesliga and came close to winning the Champions League, losing 2–1 to Manchester United in injury time after leading for most of the match. The 1999–2000 season resulted in Bayern winning their third league and cup double. A third consecutive Bundesliga title followed in 2001, won in a finish on the final day of the league season. Days later, Bayern won the Champions League for the fourth time after a 25 year gap, defeating Valencia CF on penalties. The 2001–02 season began with a win in the International Cup, but ended trophyless otherwise. A season later Bayern won their fourth double, leading the league by a record margin. Hitzfeld's reign ended in 2004, with Bayern underperforming, including a cup defeat by second division Alemannia Aachen.

Felix Magath took over and led Bayern to two consecutive doubles. Prior to the start of the 2005–06 season, Bayern moved from the Olympic Stadium to the new Allianz Arena, which the club shares with 1860 Munich. On the field their performance in 2006–07 was erratic. Trailing in the league and having lost to Alemannia Aachen in the cup yet again, coach Magath was sacked shortly after the winter break Bayern playing against São Paulo in 2007.

Former Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld returned to Munich in January 2007, but Bayern finished the 2006–07 season fourth, thus failing to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in more than a decade. Additional losses in the cup and the League Cup left the club with no honours for the season. For the 2007–08 season, Bayern Munich made drastic squad changes to help retool and rebuild. They signed a total of eight new players and sold, released or loaned out nine of their existing players. Hamit Altintop from Schalke 04, Luca Toni from ACF Fiorentina, Miroslav Klose from Werder Bremen, and record signing Franck Ribéry from Olympique Marseille headlined the signings.[24] The new additions paid off, as the Reds went on to win the 2008 DFB-Pokal and the Bundesliga, being on top of the standings on every single week of play.

On 11 January 2008 Jürgen Klinsmann was named as Hitzfeld's successor, taking charge on 1 July 2008. He signed a two year contract.[26] During the first half of the 2008–09 Bundesliga season, Bayern got off to a rocky start, winning just two games until day six, but started to catch up afterwards. Bayer Leverkusen eliminated Bayern in quarter-finals of the DFB-Pokal. In the Champions League Bayern also reached the quarter-finals. They were eliminated by FC Barcelona after winning Group F and defeating Sporting Clube de Portugal in the first knockout round, achieving a Champions League record aggregate of 12–1. On 27 April, two days after a home defeat against Schalke which saw Bayern drop to the third place in the table, Klinsmann was fired. This was preceded by several disappointing results such as a 5–1 aggregate loss to Barcelona in the Champions League, and a 5–1 loss to champions-to-be VfL Wolfsburg. Former coach Jupp Heynckes was named as caretaker until the end of the season. Bayern eventually finished second, thus qualifying directly for the Champions League in 2009–10.

FC Bayern Munich then signed manager Louis Van Gaal for the 2009–10 season from AZ of Alkmaar. While under speculation due to a strand of poor results, Van Gaal managed to advance Bayern through to the round of 16 with a convincing 4–1 display over Juventus FC in Turin. They drew Fiorentina as their opponent in the round of 16 in the Champions League. On 9 March, they lost to Fiorentina 3–2 but advanced to the quarter-final on the away goals rule. In the quarter-final clash against Manchester United, Bayern achieved a similar score to their Fiorentina games, edging United 4–4 and progress to the semi-finals of the Champions League on away goals, with them winning 2–1 at home and losing 3–2 away. On 27 April 2010, Bayern beat Olympique Lyonnais 3–0 after winning 1–0 in the first leg. That result sent Bayern to the UEFA Champions League Final 2009–10. On 8 May 2010, FC Bayern won the 2009–10 Bundesliga after a 3–1 win at Hertha Berlin. Bayern also won the German Cup (DFB-Pokal) on 15 May 2010, thus securing the double. Bayern lost the 2010 UEFA Champions League Final 2–0 to Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan on 22 May 2010 in Madrid (Santiago Bernabeu Stadium).

In the 2010–11 season they were eliminated in the first round of the UEFA Champions League knockout phase by Inter Milan by the away goals rule.

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