Salvation came late for Karlsruher FC but it did come. The KSC captain Kai Bülow scored with a header on 83 minutes in last Saturday's match against SV Wehen Wiesbaden to secure a 2-1 victory in the first win of the season on matchday four. The two-time DFB Cup winners (1955 and 1956) were relegated to the third division for the third time earlier this year. The club are hoping that this season marks a repeat of the previous ones following relegation in 2000 and 2012. The team from Baden ended those two campaigns as champions to return to the second tier. The club from the south-west of Germany are again favourites to take one of the top positions in the third division this term. However, they are currently eleventh in the table after four matches.
Head coach Marc-Patrick Meister took over the team in April 2017 in an almost hopeless position. Both Tomas Oral and Mirko Slomka had been and gone from the hot seat over the course of the season. The 37-year-old manager now faces the task of achieving consistently good results with a rejigged squad from the summer. There is certainly enough individual talent in the side: In Anton Fink, KSC signed the record goalscorer in the third division (116 goals in 254 games) from Chemnitzer FC. His strike partner Dominik Stroh-Engel joined from Darmstadt where he scored 27 goals in 2013/14; a record return for the Lilies in a third division season. Incoming players Kai Bülow (1860 Munich), David Pisot (Würzburger Kickers), Daniel Gordon (SV Sandhausen), Andreas Hofmann (SpVgg Greuther Fürth) and Marc Lorenz (SV Wehen Wiesbaden) have all demonstrated their quality in the second and third divisions. They are joined by talented youngsters with a lot of promise who moved from Bundesliga U23 teams to the Wildpark plus Germany U20 international Matthias Bader from the club's own youth system.
KSC have had to deal with the typical symptoms of relegation from the second to the third tier in German football: 26 players left the squad in the summer with 20 coming in, including several from the youth teams. The only players from last season's KSC squad in the starting eleven against Wehen were striker Oskar Zawada and talented midfielder Florent Muslija. The latter played almost exclusively for the U19 team last term.
The youth teams at KSC have produced a number of big names in German football in the past. In the 1990s, Oliver Kahn and Mehmet Scholl began their careers at KSC before moving on to the record champions in Munich. And Jens Nowotny, Bayer 04 captain for many years, also came from the youth set-up at Karlsruher SC and he was bossing the defence when Karlsruher last reached the final of the DFB Cup. Under head coach Winfried Schäfer, KSC lost 1-0 to FC Kaiserslautern in 1996. Karlsruher SC are still renowned in German football for their success in youth development - and that is almost certain to remain the case.
KSC are an attractive, and yet tough opponent for the first round of the Cup. The team from Baden have played more competitive matches than the Werkself with four games in the league already under their belts. And the quality of the squad is among the best in the third division. If the new team starts to gel quickly and doesn't drop too many points in the league matches then it would be reasonable to expect there will only be one year before Karlsruher SC return to the second division.
The penultimate Bundesliga matchday of the calendar year marks the end of an eventful first half of the season for the Bayer 04 Women. After seven wins, one draw and four defeats from the first twelve games of the season, coach Roberto Pätzold's team can go above Werder Bremen in the table with a win on Friday, 12 December (kick-off: 18:30 CET).
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The third showdown in the VBL Club Championship 2025/26 kicks off for the Leverkusen eSports team this Thursday, 11 December (live on the B04eSports Twitch channel from 19:00 CET). In the online preliminary round, the Black and Red will once again take on six previously drawn opponents for a place in the Top 16 and the associated entry into the offline knockout round, which will take place at this third showdown on 19 December in Cologne. Showdown One winners Bayer 04 will face FC St. Pauli, who won the second showdown last month, among others. The lowdown on first three opponents in this online preliminary round.
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After a strong first half, the Werkself conceded twice against Newcastle United in the UEFA Champions League but fought back and " deservedly earned the draw at the end", as captain Robert Andrich aptly put it. Despite opportunities for further Bayer 04 goals, the positive feeling about the irrepressible commitment the final minutes predominated. The Werkself review.
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Alejandro Grimaldo, of course! With his late equaliser (88') in the Champions League clash against Newcastle United, the Spaniard rescued a point for the Werkself, who took the lead through an own goal by Newcastle's Bruno Guimaraes (13') but went with two goals for the visitors scored by Anthony Gordon (51') and Lewis Miley (74'). It was the third draw for Bayer 04 in the current 2025/26 campaign on matchday 6 in the UCL league phase.
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The Werkself will be looking to continue their run in the Champions League against Newcastle United on Wednesday, 10 December (kick-off: 21:00 CET). The two victories without conceding a goal at Benfica (1:0) and Manchester City (2-0) will hopefully be followed by a win at home at the BayArena. Against the English side, who have a player with a Black and Red past in their ranks, the way to victory could be through efficiency in attack and quick transitional play. The latter in particular has recently caused the Magpies problems away from home on the European stage. Fans can also get the stylish matchday sticker for their Sound of Dreams tour pass at the Bayer 04 Fanwelt. The matchday news.
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