SpVgg Unterhaching: Too realistic for the third league

SEven as a footballer, Manfred Schwabl was not a dream dancer. During his playing days, he often stood in front of the television microphone after Bundesliga games, exhausted but still clear and critical. Even as an official, the 60-year-old maintained this clarity. And that is why the Unterhaching game association, of which Schwabl has been president since 2012, will forgo any promotion games to the third division at the end of this season.

“We have to be realistic and realize that the economic conditions for a resurgence do not exist.” Schwabl was quoted as saying in a press release that the club published on Tuesday afternoon. And further: “This is of course a disappointment for the team, the coaching team and our fans after the strong performance this season. But we will not lose sight of the prospect of promotion to League 3 in the next few years.”

Three game days before the end of the season, Unterhaching is in second place in the Bavarian Regional League. Since table leader 1. FC Nürnberg II has already declared that they will not play in the promotion games, this second place would have been enough to play for promotion against the champions of the Regionalliga Nordost, most likely 1. FC Lok Leipzig. Now the Würzburger Kickers, who are currently third in the Regionalliga Bayern, will compete in the relegation. Since the Lower Franconians will still play against Unterhaching on May 9th, it is still possible that they will move up to second place in the regional league.

But no matter how that game ends, there is now planning security in advance. When asked by SZ, Manfred Schwabl specified the reasons for the decision: “We have to stay grounded in reality: What do we want with our extremely young team in the third division? You get a beating every week and then get relegated again.” With the exception of a few experienced players, Unterhaching is currently relying almost exclusively on very young homegrown players.

Now it is important to use the coming 2026/27 season to consolidate in the regional league: “It will be a transition year, we don’t want to slip into the bottom.” They don’t want to start an upward attack again until 27/28 at the earliest: “But only if the general conditions and economic resources are right and we don’t have any problems with licensing,” says Schwabl. “We won’t do hara-kiri.” The path to consolidation had already been taken over the course of last year, when a cooperation with FC Bayern was initially initiated, which culminated in the rich partner buying the Sportparkstadion from the Unterhaching community – primarily in order to acquire an additional venue for its women’s team.

It is clear to the president that the decision to withdraw from a possible promotion round would not go down well with the supporters: “It is brutal for the fans, but we simply have no real choice,” says Schwabl, referring to the listed club’s supervisory board, which strongly advised against promotion.

The Munich suburbs last made the jump to the third division in the summer of 2023 under coach Sandro Wagner. At that time they hesitated for a long time and the decision was only announced shortly before the relegation games against Energie Cottbus, which massively upset the Lausitz team because, as Energie coach Claus-Dieter Wollitz said, they didn’t even know which opponent they had to prepare for. Haching promptly prevailed in both games.

This time they are not getting involved in any tactical games and are directly rejecting relegation. A course that Unterhaching’s trainer Sven Bender apparently also supports. President Schwabl confirmed this when asked. And the former national player is apparently not at all averse to working in the regional league for another year. The trend is “positive,” says Schwabl. Bender once started playing football with his twin brother Lars as a youth in Unterhaching before he played as a professional at, among others, 1860 Munich and Borussia Dortmund. He returned to SpVgg in 2024, initially as an assistant coach, and after parting ways with Marc Unterberger, he took over his first head coaching position at the sports park.