Who are Elversberg? | OneFootball

Elversberg: Who are the surprise Bundesliga 2 promotion contenders?

Elversberg are the surprise package challenging for promotion in their second season in Bundesliga 2, but who exactly are the Saarland-based outfit? bundesliga.com finds out...

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The season so far

The 2023/24 campaign was Elversberg's first ever in Bundesliga 2 and saw them finish in 11th place, 11 points above the relegation zone. After finding their feet last term, they flew out of the blocks time around and even found themselves at the top of the table after 16 games.

Despite a run of three losses in a row either side of the winter break, Horst Steffen's men battled their way back in the promotion picture with a wonderful record of just one defeat in their last 14 matches heading into the final day, where a win away at Schalke sensationally secured them a place in the play-off against Heidenheim and two games away from the Bundesliga.

With 64 goals, only promoted Hamburg outscored Elversberg over the regular season. They scored four goals or more in a game on five occasions this season against Darmstadt (4-0), away and at home to Hertha Berlin (4-1) and (4-0), at home to Hamburg (4-2) and Jahn Regensburg (6-0).

Elversberg's time in the third tier saw them come up against a young Joshua Kimmich at RB Leipzig. (IMAGO/motivio)

History

Elversberg are from the provincial town of Spiesen-Elversberg, which has a population of under 13,000. Formed originally as FC Germania Elversberg in 1907, the club briefly went out of existence for seven years due to the outbreak of World War I, before reforming in 1918. Like many lower league, largely regional clubs, Elversberg have undergone face lifts over the years thanks to local mergers before settling on their current moniker. Their home is the Ursapharm-Arena, better known as the Waldstadion an der Kaiserlinde, which can hold almost the entire town with a capacity of 10,000.

Elversberg had never played above the third rung of German football before 2023. They competed alongside RB Leipzig in their sole 3. Liga campaign in 2013/14 but were immediately relegated back to the fourth-tier Regionalliga Südwest before finally earning a return to the third division in the 2022/23 season. There were near-misses in the interim, with three top-two finishes and defeat in two promotion play-offs, in 2015/16 and 2016/17. Their 2022 promotion was automatic as champions of the Regionalliga Südwest.

A first DFB Cup appearance came in the 1979/80 season, and they have gone on to feature eight more times since, with their run in the 2022/23 season including the dumping out of Bayer Leverkusen, with their 4-3 home win taking them to the second round, before they were beaten 1-0 by Bochum. Elversberg have been more dominant in the Landespokal Saarland in recent years - their regional cup competition featuring teams from the third tier and below - which they lifted four times in a row between 2020 and 2023.

Coach

Steffen, who made 207 Bundesliga appearances as a midfielder across spells at Borussia Mönchengladbach, Duisburg and Uerdingen, and played for Germany's U21s, took the reins in 2018. The 56-year-old led Elversberg to a fourth-placed finish in his first season and has improved step by step ever since, finishing third, then second, before finally winning the regional division crown in 2022. Having secured back-to-back promotions, and lifted the club to its highest ever point, Steffen is now a veritable legend in the Saarland.

Star player

Fisnik Asllani has been a revelation for Steffen's men this season, scoring 18 goals and registering eight assists. Only Davie Selke (22) and Martijn Kaars (19) outscored him in the regular campaign. At just 22 years old, Asllani has taken to the Bundesliga 2 like a duck to water, having joined on loan from Hoffenheim in the summer.

Before scoring his first goal in professional football with Austria Vienna last season, Asllani was a consistent goalscorer at youth level for both Union Berlin and Hoffenheim's youth teams. Across the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons, he scored 38 goals in 39 U19 Bundesliga games for Union, before making the switch to Hoffenheim's second team ahead of the 2020/21 season. It didn't take long for him to impress at his new club and Asllani made his Bundesliga debut for Hoffenheim's first team in the 2021/22 season, coming on as a late substitute in a 2-0 win at home to Leipzig not long after turning 19.

Last season's loan spell in Austrian football saw him score five times in 18 games, before returning to Germany with Elversberg ahead of the current season. A natural goalscorer with Bundesliga experience at a young age, Asllani is certainly one to keep an eye on, as those at Elversberg will certainly tell you.

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