Rot-Weiss Essen

Rot-Weiss Essen is a German association football club based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club currently plays in the fourth-tier Regionalliga West, at the Stadion Essen.

The team won the DFB-Pokal in 1953, and the German championship in 1955. The latter success qualified them to the first season of the European Cup.

History

Early years

The club was formed as SV Vogelheim on 1 February 1907 out of the merger of two smaller clubs: SC Preussen and Deutsche Eiche. In 1910, Vogelheim came to an arrangement with Turnerbund Bergeborbeck that allowed the two clubs to field a football side. The footballers left in 1913 to set up their own club, Spiel- und Sportverein Emscher-Vogelheim, which changed its name to Spiel und Sport 1912 after World War I. Finally, in 1923, this side turned again to Turnerbund Bergeborbeck to create Rot-Weiss Essen.

Breakthrough to the Gauliga

In 1938, RWE broke into top-flight football in the Gauliga Niederrhein, one of sixteen premier divisions formed in the 1933 re-organization of German football under the Third Reich, and came within a point of taking the division title in 1941. In 1943 they played with BV Altenessen as the combined wartime side KSG SC Rot-Weiß Essen/BV 06 Altenessen. The next season this club was in turn joined by BVB Essen, but played only a single match in a stillborn season as World War II overtook the country.

Borussia Dortmund

Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e.V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund [boˈʁʊsi̯a ˈdɔʁtmʊnt],Dortmund, or BVB, is a German sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. The football team is part of a large membership-based sports club with more than 115,000 members, making BVB the third largest sports club by membership in Germany. Dortmund plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system. Dortmund is one of the most successful clubs in German football history.

Borussia Dortmund was founded in 1909 by eighteen football players from Dortmund. Borussia Dortmund have won eight German championships, three DFB-Pokals, five DFL-Supercups, one UEFA Champions League, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, and one Intercontinental Cup. Their Cup Winners' Cup win in 1966 made them the first German club to win a European title.

Since 1974, Dortmund have played their home games at Westfalenstadion. The stadium is the largest in Germany and Dortmund has the highest average attendance of any association football club in the world. Borussia Dortmund's colours are black and yellow, giving the club its nickname die Schwarzgelben. Dortmund holds a long-standing rivalry with Ruhr neighbours Schalke 04, known as the Revierderby. Dortmund also has a rivalry with Bayern Munich. In terms of Deloitte's annual Football Money League, Dortmund is the second biggest sports club in Germany and the 11th biggest football team in the world.

Essen

Essen (German pronunciation: [ˈʔɛsn̩]; Latin: Assindia) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Its population of approximately 583.267 (as of 30 September 2015) makes it the 9th-largest city in Germany. It is the central city of the northern (Ruhr) part of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area and seat to several of the region's authorities.

Founded around 845, Essen remained a small town within the sphere of influence of an important ecclesiastical principality (Essen Abbey) until the onset of industrialization. The city then — especially through the Krupp family iron works — became one of Germany's most important coal and steel centers. Essen has until the 1970s attracted workers from all over the country and was the 5th-largest city in Germany between 1929 and 1988, peaking at over 730,000 inhabitants in 1962. Following the region-wide decline of heavy industries in the last decades of the 20th century, the city has seen the development of a strong tertiary sector of the economy. Essen today is seat to 13 of the 100 largest German corporations, including two (by 2016, three ) DAX corporations, placing the city second only to Munich and on-par with Frankfurt am Main in number of corporate headquarters.

MSV Duisburg

Meidericher Spielverein 02 e. V. Duisburg, commonly known as simply MSV Duisburg (German pronunciation: [ʔɛm ʔɛs faʊ̯ ˈdyːsbʊʁk]), is a German association football club based in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia. Nicknamed Die Zebras for their traditional striped jerseys, the club was one of the original members of the Bundesliga when it was formed in 1963.

History

Early years

The club was founded in 1902 as Meidericher Spielverein representing the city of Meiderich, which became a district of Duisburg in 1905. In 1905 they absorbed the club Sport Club Viktoria Meiderich. In 1967, they took on their current name, acknowledging their role as the city's most popular and successful side.

While Duisburg has always been a competitive side, real success has so far eluded them. Early in their history they captured a number of local championships, and even enjoyed a pair of undefeated seasons (1913–14) when they scored 113 goals while only giving up 12. In 1929 they won the first Niederrhein championship and qualified for the first time for the national championship rounds, repeating the feat in 1931.