The world is coming to an end in the football city of Duisburg. For the first time in its history, MSV will almost certainly be relegated to the fourth division. Meanwhile, 94 kilometers to the southwest, the sun is rising in Aachen: Alemannia is returning to the third league after eleven years. The paths of the traditional North Rhine-Westphalian clubs between the two leagues can cross as early as Saturday. The Duisburg team is threatened with the final push down into the depths of regional football against Sandhausen. At the same time, Aachen can secure promotion against 1. FC Bocholt. More than 30,000 spectators want to celebrate in the Tivoli Stadium.
Joy in the south of the Rhineland, sadness in the north. “We travel far, we travel a lot – and lose every game,” sang the traveling MSV fans during the 2-0 defeat in Ingolstadt last Saturday. They shouted to the players: “You are a disgrace for Duisburg!” Three days later, coach Boris Schommers was suspended. The Meidericher Spiel-Ververein, which proudly finished second behind the champions 1. FC Köln in the Bundesliga premiere season 1963/64, has experienced many sad moments since its relegation to the Bundesliga in 2008. But the fall into the fourth league is the low point of a gradual decline.
They also know such dark moments in Aachen: relegation from the Bundesliga in 2007, from the second division in 2012; also two bankruptcies in 2012 and 2017 – and most recently the Regionalliga West for eleven years in a row with opponents like Velbert, Wiedenbrück and Bocholt in the impressive 31,000-seat stadium. The crowds in Aachen are almost suitable for the first division this season: with an average of 18,400 visitors per home game, the fourth division team ranks 30th in the seasonal rankings for German football – ahead of 19 of the 20 third division teams, six of the 18 second division teams and even ahead of the Bundesliga teams Darmstadt and Heidenheim.
The whole of Aachen is electrified, says Alemannia’s managing director and sporting director Sascha Eller: “It’s crazy!” The 48-year-old from Worms started at Alemannia as a youth coach six years ago and took over management in 2022. His express thanks go to the trainer Heiner Backhaus. The 42-year-old from Witten has only been Alemannia’s coach for seven months; he was previously in Berlin with BFC Dynamo in the fourth division. Backhaus is seen as the engine of a footballing will, the glue of a close-knit team. The best goalscorer in the Alemannia and the Regionalliga West with 16 goals is the Bielefeld native Anton Heinz, who previously played for Verl, Lippstadt and Oberhausen and has never made it beyond the fourth division.
Fortuna Cologne, Rot-Weiß Oberhausen and Wuppertaler SV are still stuck in the fourth division
The success of the football club is a blessing for Aachen. “We are the largest advertising medium in the city,” said Alemannia’s supervisory board boss Marcel Moberz Welt. With this, the 41-year-old Aachen native points to the economic factor even in lower-class football, which should also be seen as a consolation and incentive in Duisburg. At Rot-Weiss Essen, which returned to the third division two years ago after 13 years in the fourth division, they recently commissioned a study. They claimed that the football club generates a regional economic impact of more than 48 million euros annually for Essen and the surrounding area. At the moment, Rot-Weiss is even dreaming of promotion to the second division, and shortly before the end of the season they are in contact with the relegation place.
:The bony charm of the collective
SSV Ulm has been bankrupt three times in its history. Now he is about to make it to the second Bundesliga. With a team that gets more out of itself than it could have imagined.
In Münster, too, the mood is good again in the first third division season after three years in the fourth division. The Westphalians occupy the promising relegation place to the second league. The Swabian newcomer SSV Ulm even has a direct march to the top, after Saarland’s SV Elversberg had already achieved this last season. They can look up to such role models in Duisburg. The Meiderich team had already secured the support of the city and relevant sponsors before the relegation was completed. They also want to play their fourth division games in the big arena like Aachen. Maybe a new euphoria will emerge here in the coming season.
It looks as if the new MSV manager Michael Preetz, once at Hertha BSC and in Duisburg since January, should lead the new beginning in the regional league. He has to put together a new squad with manageable resources (future budget estimated at three million euros), only two current players reportedly have a contract for the fourth division. This would offer the opportunity to start over with unencumbered players.
However, it won’t be a sure-fire success. Not all traditional NRW clubs have managed to return. Fortuna Cologne, Rot-Weiß Oberhausen and Wuppertaler SV are still stuck in the fourth division. Wattenscheid 09, KFC Uerdingen and Sportfreunde Siegen have disappeared in the fifth league. Wattenscheid, last in the Bundesliga in 1994, even had relegation worries this season. However, the club from the Bochum district does not have the emotional significance locally and regionally of clubs like Rot-Weiss Essen, Preußen Münster or Alemannia Aachen. MSV also enjoys particular attention from fans and supporters. And so in Duisburg football: the sun may set, but it will rise again at some point.