 | ||||
| Full name | Karlsruher Sport-Club Mühlburg-Phönix e. V. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicknames | KSC, Eurofighter (since 93–94 season) | |||
| Founded | 6 June 1894; 131 years ago (1894-06-06) | |||
| Ground | BBBank Wildpark | |||
| Capacity | 34,302 | |||
| President | Holger Siegmund-Schultze[1] | |||
| Head coach | Christian Eichner | |||
| League | 2. Bundesliga | |||
| 2024–25 | 2. Bundesliga, 8th of 18 | |||
| Website | ksc.de | |||
 Current season | ||||
Karlsruher Sport-Club Mühlburg-Phönix e. V., better known asKarlsruher SC, is aGerman association football club, based inKarlsruhe,Baden-Württemberg that currently plays in the2. Bundesliga, the second tier of German football. Domestically, the club was crowned German champion in 1909 and won theDFB-Pokal in 1955 and 1956. In Europe, KSC won theUEFA Intertoto Cup in 1996, which remains the club's last major honor.
Formed as Karlsruher Fussball Club Phönix in 1894, the modern form of the club was formed as the result of several mergers in 1952, and its early success granted KSC a spot in theinaugural Bundesliga season in 1963. KSC spent the next few decades as ayo-yo club, frequently being promoted and relegated between the top two divisions, with their bestBundesliga season coming in 1996 when KSC finished 6th in the table. Relegation followed in 1998, and the club has since spent all but two seasons between the second andthird tiers. KSC maintains a fierce rivalry withVfB Stuttgart, in which oldBadenese-Württembergian animosities are played out.
The most successful of these ancestral clubs was Karlsruher Fussball Club Phönix, formed on 6 June 1894 by dissatisfied gymnastics club Karlsruher Turngemeinde members. They quickly became a strong regional side, playing in theSüdkreis-Liga, and won the national title in 1909, defeating defending championsViktoria 89 Berlin 4–2 in the championship final that season. In 1912, Phönix merged with KFC Alemannia, established in 1897, to create KFC Phönix (Phönix Alemannia).
It was as Phönix Karlsruhe that the club joined theGauliga Baden, one of 16 top-flight divisions created in the re-organization of German football under theThird Reich. They slipped from the first division for a single season in 1936, but returned to compete as a mediocre side over the next several years. In the 1943–44 season, Karlsruhe played with Germania Durlach as the combined wartime side named KSG (Kriegssportgemeinschaft) Phönix/Germania Karlsruhe. After World War II in 1946, Phönix re-emerged to compete in the newly formed first division Oberliga Süd, finishing 15th in their first season there. The club was relegated the following season.
Two other threads in the evolution ofKSC were the formation of FC Mühlburg in 1905 out of 1. FV Sport Mühlburg (founded in 1890) and Viktoria Mühlburg (founded in 1892), and the merger of FC Germania (founded in 1898) andFC Weststadt (founded in 1902) to form VfB Karlsruhe in 1911. FC Mühlburg and VfB Karlsruhe would, in turn, merge to form VfB Mühlburg in 1933. The group of clubs which came together to form VfB Mühlburg were an undistinguished lot, sharing just one season of upper-league play between them. The new side, however, started to compete in the first-division Gauliga Baden immediately after the league was established in 1933.
A lower-table side through the 1930s, VfB's performance improved considerably in the following decade. As war overtook the country, the Gauliga Baden was sub-divided at various times into a number of more local city-based circuits, and the team was able to earn three second-place finishes in divisional play. The Gauliga Baden collapsed in 1944–45 after playing a significantly reduced schedule in which many teams, including Mühlburg, were unable to compete. After the war the club slipped from top-flight competition until earning promotion to theOberliga Süd in 1947. They generally competed as a mid-table side here with the exception of a strong performance in 1951 when they narrowly missed an advance to the national championship rounds after earning a third-place result just a single point behindSpVgg Fürth.
KFC Phoenix and VfB Mühlburg united to form the Karlsruher Sport-Club Mühlburg-Phönix e. V., on 16 October 1952 and the new team earned good results throughout the remainder of the decade. In 1955, they beatSchalke 04 3–2 to win theDFB-Pokal, and repeated the success next year with a 3–1 win overHamburger SV. That season, they also made an appearance in the national final, where they lost 2–4 toBorussia Dortmund. KSC was Oberliga Süd champion in 1956, 1958 and 1960, as well as runner-up in the DFB-Pokal in 1960, when they lost the final match 2–3 toBorussia Mönchengladbach. Their record earned them admission as one of sixteen founding clubs into Germany's new professional football league, theBundesliga, when it began play in 1963.
Karlsruhe struggled in the top flight, never managing better than a 13th-place finish over five seasons before finally being demoted to the second-divisionRegionalliga Süd. Over the next three seasons, the team earned a first-place finish as well as two-second-place finishes there but were unable to advance in the promotion rounds. After the 1974 formation of the2. Bundesliga, which consisted of two divisions at the time, KSC finished first in the 2. Bundesliga Süd and returned to the top flight for the 1975–76 season but were able to stay up for only two years. They next returned to the first division in 1980, where they spent four seasons before being sent down again. After a two-year absence, they were promoted back to the Bundesliga in 1987 to begin an extended stay.
Under the guidance of new coachWinfried Schäfer, KSC's return to the top flight was marked with some success as for the first time, the team managed to work its way out of the bottom half of the league table. In the 1993–94 season, the club had a successful run in theUEFA Cup, going out in the semi-finals onaway goals toAustria Salzburg after beating, in turn,PSV,Valencia,Bordeaux andBoavista. Their 7–0 second-round victory over Valencia, a top team in the SpanishLa Liga at the time and in historical terms as well, might be considered the high point of the club's history in its centennial year. Edgar "Euro Eddy" Schmitt scored 4 goals and became a club legend. Between 1992 and 1997, the club was ranked in the single digits in six consecutive Bundesliga seasons, and participated in two more UEFA Cups, reaching the third round both in the 1996–97 and 1997–98 seasons, being eliminated from the competition after losing their second-leg matches toBrøndby andSpartak Moscow respectively. In 1995, KSC won theDFB-Hallenpokal, an indoor football tournament that was traditionally held during winter breaks of the Bundesliga seasons. They also played in the final of the DFB-Pokal in 1996 but lost 0–1 to1. FC Kaiserslautern.
As the millennium drew to a close, Karlsruhe faded. The club started the 1997–98 Bundesliga season well, with two wins and a draw in their opening three matches, but their downfall began with a 1–6 defeat toBayer Leverkusen on Day 4. At the league winter break the club sat outside the relegation ranks, but a series of negative results pushed them down to 15th place until the second-last matchday of the season. Schäfer was fired in March 1998, but this did not keep the club from slipping to the Second Bundesliga after a 16th-place finish. The club needed an away draw againstHansa Rostock on the final day of the season to avoid relegation but lost the match 2–4 while Borussia Mönchengladbach beatVfL Wolfsburg 2–0 to overtake KSC and finish 15th ongoal difference.
KSC finished fifth in their first season in the 2. Bundesliga after relegation, only two points behind third-placeSSV Ulm 1846 which was promoted to the Bundesliga. However, a last place finish in a terrible 1999–2000 season played under dire financial circumstances dropped them down to theRegionalliga Süd (III). The club rebounded and on the strength of a first-place result in the Regionalliga made a prompt return to second division play. After four seasons of mediocre play that saw KSC narrowly avoid being sent further down, the team turned in a much-improved performance and earned a sixth-place result in 2005–06.
KSC secured the 20072. Bundesliga title with three games left in the season by way of a 1–0 victory overSpVgg Unterhaching on 29 April, combined with a draw by second-placed Hansa Rostock on 30 April.[2] KSC maintained its dominance over the course of the season, playing 14 matches (nine wins, five draws) before suffering their first loss of the campaign at the hands ofErzgebirge Aue. They became the first team in the history of the single-division 2. Bundesliga to occupy the top spot throughout the whole season.
In their return season to the Bundesliga in 2007–08 they finished 11th, fading in the second half of the year after a strong start that saw them positioned in the qualifying places forEuropean competition. The club continued to perform poorly in the 2008–09 season, ultimately finishing 17th and finding themselves relegated to the 2. Bundesliga once more. The club's two most recent campaigns there ended with 10th and 15th-place finishes. Karlsruhe finished second level as 16th and facedJahn Regensburg with relegation play-offs. These teams draw with as 1–1 at Regensburg and as 2–2 at Karlsruhe. This meant Karlsruhe's relegation to third tier after 12 years according toaway goal rule.
The club successfully bounced back in 2012–13 when it won a championship in the 3. Liga and earned promotion back to the 2. Bundesliga.
2014–15 would see the club come close to a return to the Bundesliga, a third-place finish would see them play a promotion play-off against Hamburg, and after a 1–1 draw in Hamburg in the first leg, KSC were seconds away from promotion, only for Hamburg to score an equaliser in the 90th minute to force extra time, where they would score a winning away goal late in the second half to secure their Bundesliga status for another season.[3]
In 2019, Karlsruhe won 4–1 againstPreußen Münster on matchday 31,[4] therefore returning to the 2. Bundesliga after a hiatus of two years.
TheKarlsruher SC II, historically also referred to as Karlsruher SC Amateure, is a successful side in its own right, playing for many years as high up as the Regionalliga Süd. At the end of the 2011–12 season, the team was forcefully relegated to the Oberliga because of the relegation of the first team to the 3. Liga as reserve teams of 3. Liga clubs are not permitted in the Regionalliga anymore from 2012. The team had suffered a similar fate in 2000, when the first team was relegated to the Regionalliga Süd and the reserve team therefore had to leave this league despite finishing above the relegation ranks.
Between 1991 and 2000, the team also won theNorth Baden Cup on four occasions, thereby qualifying for the first round of the DFB-Pokal on each occasion. Its greatest success in this competition was reaching the third round in1996–97.[5]
After many restrained years, in which the targeted promotion was clearly missed, the already greatly reduced second team was discontinued for financial reasons at the end of the 2017–18 Oberliga season.[6] However, KSC reopened its second team as a fans' team for the 2019–20 season and entered the Kreisklasse C, the lowest level of league football in Karlsruhe and North Baden.[7]
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The club's honours:
League[edit]
| Cup[edit]International[edit]
Reserve team[edit]
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Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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| Position | Name |
|---|---|
| Head coach |  Christian Eichner |
| Assistant head coach |  Zlatan Bajramović |
| Assistant coach | Sirus Motekallemi |
| Goalkeeper coach | Markus Miller |
| Fitness coach | Florian Böckler |
| Rehab coach | Wendelin Wäcker |
| Team Doctor | Dr. Marcus Schweizer |
| Physiotherapist |  Matteo Poppert Kevin Benz |
| Kit man | Torsten Merkel Cafer Aydogan |
| Laundry | Gloria Schorb |
| Bus Driver | Thomas Laschuk Andreas Heinrich |
| Technical Director | Necat Aygün |
| Youth Chief Scout | Sebastian Freis |
| Team Manager | Burkhard Reich Sarah Saliba |
Coaches of the club since 1952:[9]
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The recent season-by-season performance of the club:[10][11]
 | This list has noprecise inclusion criteria as described in theManual of Style for standalone lists. Pleaseimprove this article by adding inclusion criteria, or discuss this issue on thetalk page.(January 2024) |
Karlsruher SC[edit]
| Karlsruher SC II[edit]
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| ↑Promoted | ↓Relegated |
