1.
MDCC-Arena
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The MDCC-Arena is a multi-purpose stadium in Magdeburg, Germany. It has been completed and opened to the public in December 2006 and it is mostly used for football matches and hosts the home matches of 1. The stadium is a fully covered football-only stadium, i. e. without an athletics track and it has a capacity of 27,250 people, of these a capacity of 4,800 is standing room. For all-seater matches the standing room can be converted to 2,650 seats, in addition, there are 15 boxes with a total of 180 seats as well as 430 business seats. The stadium also has 64 seats for persons with disabilities, furthermore,40 press seats are available. The maximum distance from the pitch is 32 meters, the floodlight is attached to the stadiums roof, as well as the two 30m2 screens. The pitch is 105 metres long and 68 metres wide, it has under-soil heating, total cost of construction was 31 million Euros. The first stadium at this location had been inaugurated on April 14,1912 as the home of SV Victoria 96 Magdeburg, in 1914 it hosted the final to the German championship between Spielvereinigung Fürth and VfB Leipzig. In 1937 it was bought by the Allianz insurance company after Victoria had gone bankrupt, during World War II the stadium was completely destroyed by bombing. After World War II the city of Magdeburg planned to erect a sports center consisting among others of a stadium with a capacity for 80,000 people, however, the city was unable to acquire the site originally intended and so the project was abandoned. Instead, the city decided to build a new stadium east of the Elbe river, in order to erect the stands, about 5.3 million cubic ft of rubble were transported from the ruins of the city. The stadium was equipped with a track and was opened in front of a crowd of 40,000 on September 18,1955. Over the years, it was upgraded several times, parts of the stands were put under a roof, however, after the reunification of Germany the stadium fell into disrepair and in 2004 the city council decided to build a new one at the same site. The Ernst-Grube-Stadion was demolished between March and June 2005, and construction of the new stadium began on July 4,2005, the first match was held on December 19,2006. In front of a crowd of 13,279, hosts 1, FC Magdeburg came to a nil-all draw against Eintracht Braunschweig. FC Magdeburg lost 0-3 to Bundesliga side SV Werder Bremen, this time 24,300 spectators had come, in the remaining matches of the season,10,800 spectators came to see 1. The first international match was held on July 29,2007 when the German womens national team beat their Danish counterparts 4-0 in front of 10,735 spectators, in 2009 the stadium hosted the 2009 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship final. In July 2009, local ISP and cable TV company MDCC announced they had signed a sponsorship agreement with the stadium operator under which the stadium would be known as MDCC-Arena
2.
3. Liga
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Liga, is the third division of football in Germany. The league started with the beginning of the 2008–09 season, when it replaced the Regionalliga as the third football league in Germany. In the German football league system, it is positioned between the 2, Bundesliga and the semi-professional Regionalliga, which became the fourth division and initially consisted of three groups of 18 clubs playing separately. Liga is the highest division that a football clubs reserve team can play in, on 8 September 2006, the German Football Association, the DFB, announced the formation of the 3. It was originally anticipated that the name would be 3. Bundesliga, but the DFB chose 3, Liga instead, reflecting the fact that the league will be directly administered by the DFB, not by the German Football League DFL who runs both Bundesliga and 2. The first match of the 3, Liga was played on 25 July 2008 between FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt and Dynamo Dresden at the Steigerwaldstadion in Erfurt. Dynamo Dresden won the match 1–0, with Halil Savran scoring the goal in the closing stages of the first half. From its foundation in 2008 to 2013 the league had been operating on a financial loss, the 2013–14 season saw the league make a profit for the first time, being €4.9 million in the plus. This makes it the third-most economically successful professional league in all German sports, the teams which are not reserve teams of Bundesliga teams among the 20 teams in the league compete for promotion to the 2. Bundesliga, while the three teams are relegated to one of the five Regionalligen, Regionalliga Nord, Regionalliga Nordost, Regionalliga West, Regionalliga Südwest. If, however, a team is playing in the 3. Liga and the respective first team is relegated to the 3, Liga, the reserve team will be relegated to the Regionalliga regardless of its league position. At the end of the 2007–08 season, the two best non-reserve teams from each of the two divisions of the Regionalliga were promoted to the 2, the teams ranked third to tenth in both Regionalliga entered the new 3. Liga, joining the four teams relegated from the 2, Bundesliga to form the new 20-team league. Teams finishing 11th or lower in their Regionalliga remained where they were, on 18 May 2008, at the end of the 2007–082. Bundesliga season, four clubs were relegated from the 2, Bundesliga and became charter members of the 3. Liga, Kickers Offenbach, FC Erzgebirge Aue, SC Paderborn 07, on 31 May 2008, at the end of the 2007–08 Regionalliga seasons, clubs placing third through tenth in the Regionalliga Nord and the Regionalliga Süd also qualified for the new 3
3.
2. Bundesliga
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Bundesliga is the second division of professional football in Germany. Bundesliga is ranked below the Bundesliga and above the 3, liga in the German football league system. Bundesliga clubs qualify for the DFB-Pokal, the annual German Cup competition, a total of 125 clubs have competed in the 2. The decision to establish the league as the level of football in West Germany was taken in May 1973. The league started operating in August 1974, then two divisions of 20 clubs. It was reduced to a division in 1981. From the 1991–92 season onwards clubs from former East Germany started participating in the league and it returned to a single division format again at the end of that season and has had 18 clubs as its strength since 1994. Bundesliga are directly promoted to the Bundesliga, while a third promoted club has been determined through play-offs from 1974 to 1991, between 1991 and 2008 the third-placed club in the league was directly promoted. The bottom clubs in the league are relegated to the division which has been, from 1974 to 1994 the Oberliga, from 1994 to 2008 the Regionalliga. The number of relegated clubs has fluctuated over the years, since 2008 two clubs are directly relegated while the third-last team has the opportunity to defend its league place in play-offs against the third placed team of the 3. FC Nürnberg holds the number of championships in the league with four. The club also holds the record for number of promotions from the 2, for the 2015–16 season, an average of 19,176 spectators watched 2. Bundesliga the worlds most-watched secondary football league, the decision to establish the 2. Bundesliga as a professional league below the Bundesliga was made at the annual convention of the German Football Association. The league replaced the five Regionalligas that were at this level from 1963 to 1974, the qualified teams were established through a ranking that took the last five seasons of the Regionalliga into account. Bundesliga was split into a northern and a division with 20 clubs each. Each division had its champion directly promoted to the Bundesliga while the two runners-up would contest a two-leg play-off to determine the promoted team. The first-ever game of the league was played on Friday,2 August 1974 between 1, FC Saarbrücken and SV Darmstadt 98 and ended in a 1–0 win for Saarbrücken, with Nikolaus Semlitsch scoring the first-ever goal of the new league
4.
Kit (association football)
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In association football, kit is the standard equipment and attire worn by players. The sports Laws of the Game specify the minimum kit which a player must use, footballers generally wear identifying numbers on the backs of their shirts. Professional clubs also usually display players surnames or nicknames on their shirts, Football kit has evolved significantly since the early days of the sport when players typically wore thick cotton shirts, knickerbockers and heavy rigid leather boots. The Laws of the Game set out the equipment which must be worn by all players in Law 4. Five separate items are specified, shirt, shorts, socks, footwear, goalkeepers are allowed to wear tracksuit bottoms instead of shorts. While most players wear studded football boots, the Laws do not specify that these are required, shirts must have sleeves, and goalkeepers must wear shirts which are easily distinguishable from all other players and the match officials. Thermal undershorts may be worn, but must be the colour as the shorts themselves. Shin pads must be covered entirely by the stockings, be made of rubber, plastic or a similar material, and provide a reasonable degree of protection. The only other restriction on equipment defined in the Laws of the Game is the requirement that a player must not use equipment or wear anything that is dangerous to himself or another player. In the event of a match between teams who would wear identical or similar colours the away team must change to a different colour. The England national team plays in red shirts even when it is not required. Many professional clubs also have a kit, ostensibly to be used if both their first-choice and away colours are deemed too similar to those of an opponent. Most professional clubs have retained the basic colour scheme for several decades. Teams representing countries in international competition generally wear national colours in common with other sporting teams of the same nation, shirts are normally made of a polyester mesh, which does not trap the sweat and body heat in the same way as a shirt made of a natural fibre. Depending on local rules, there may be restrictions on how large these logos may be or on what logos may be displayed, competitions such as the Premier League may also require players to wear patches on their sleeves depicting the logo of the competition. The captain of team is usually required to wear an elasticated armband around the left sleeve to identify him as the captain to the referee. Most current players wear specialist football boots, which can be either of leather or a synthetic material. Modern boots are cut slightly below the ankles, as opposed to the high-ankled boots used in former times, studs may be either moulded directly to the sole or be detachable, normally by means of a screw thread
5.
Away colours
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Away colours are a choice of coloured clothing used in team sports. They are required to be worn by one team during a game between teams that would wear the same colours as each other, or similar colours. This change prevents confusion for officials, players, and spectators, in most sports it is the visiting team that must change – second-choice kits are commonly known as away kits or change kits in British English, and road uniforms in American English. Some sports leagues mandate that teams must always wear an alternative kit. In some sports, conventionally the home team has changed its kit, in most cases, a team wears its away kit only when its primary kit would clash with the colours of the home team. However, sometimes teams wear away colours by choice, occasionally even in a home game, at some clubs, the away kit has become more popular than the home version. Replica home and away kits are available for fans to buy. Some teams also have produced third-choice kits, or even old-fashioned throwback uniforms, in American sports, road teams usually wear a change uniform regardless of a potential colour clash. Further, almost all road uniforms are white in American football, in the National Basketball Association, home uniforms are white or yellow, and visiting teams wear a darker colour. In the United States, color vs. color games are a rarity, most teams choose to wear their color jerseys at home, with the road team changing to white in most cases. White road uniforms gained prominence with the rise of television in the 1950s, a white vs. color game was easier to follow in black-and-white. According to Phil Hecken, until the mid 1950′s, not only was color versus color common in the NFL, even long after the advent of color television, the use of white jerseys has remained in almost every game. The NFLs current rules require that a home jerseys must be either white or official team color throughout the season. If a team insists on wearing its home uniforms on the road, the road team might instead wear a third jersey, such as the Seattle Seahawks Wolf Grey alternate. According to the Gridiron Uniform Database, the Cleveland Browns wore white for home game of the 1955 season. The only times they wore brown was for games at Philadelphia and the New York Giants, in 1964 the Baltimore Colts, Browns, Vikings and Rams wore white regularly for their home games according to Tim Brulias research. The St. Louis Cardinals wore white for several of their home games, until 1964 Dallas had worn blue at home, but it was not an official rule that teams should wear their colored jerseys at home. The use of white jerseys was instigated by general manager Tex Schramm, the Cowboys still wear white at home today
6.
Football in Germany
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Football is the most popular sport in Germany. The German Football Association is the national governing body, with 6.6 million members organized in over 26,000 football clubs. There is a system, with the Bundesliga and 2. The winner of the Bundesliga is crowned the German football champion, additionally, there are national cup competitions, most notably the DFB-Pokal and DFL-Supercup. The Germany national football team has won four FIFA World Cups and it also holds a record three UEFA European Championships. The Germany womens national team has won two FIFA Womens World Cups and a record eight UEFA European Womens Championships. Germany is the nation that has won both the mens and womens World Cup. In addition, Germany is the nation to have won the applicable regional/continental championship for both the mens and womens team. No team has more combined mens and womens World Cup championships, the first football match arguably took place in Braunschweig in 1874. Two schoolteachers, August Hermann and Konrad Koch, initiated the first match after Hermann had obtained a round football from England, in 1875, Koch published the first German version of the rules of football, although Kochs version of the game still closely resembled Rugby football. The Dresden English Football Club is considered the first modern football club in Germany and it was founded in 1874 by Englishmen living and working around Dresden. In the following 20 years the game achieved a growing popularity, Football clubs were founded in Berlin, Hamburg and Karlsruhe. On 28 January 1900, representatives from 86 football clubs from German-speaking areas in and outside the German Empire met in the restaurant Mariengarten in Leipzig, the founding meeting was led by E. J. Kirmse, chairman of the Leipziger Fussball Verband. Ferdinand Hueppe, representing the DFC Prag, was elected first president of the DFB, the first championship beyond municipal areas was held in 1898 from the Verband Sueddeutscher Fussball-Vereine, later affiliated with the DFB. The German national football team represents Germany in international football competitions since 1908 and it is controlled by the German Football Association DFB, the governing body of football in Germany. After the war, Germany was occupied in three states, the DFB and its team continued in what was called West Germany, while the Saarland and East Germany fielded separate teams for some years. The FIFA World Cup 1974 was staged in West Germany, meeting on 22 June 1974 in a politically charged match in Hamburg, East Germany beat West Germany 1–0, on a goal by Jürgen Sparwasser. Both German teams advanced to the second round anyway, the GDR team was eliminated there, while the DFB team eventually went on to win the tournament
7.
Magdeburg
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Magdeburg is the capital city and the second largest city of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe, Emperor Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor, founder of the archbishopric of Magdeburg, was buried in the towns cathedral after his death. Magdeburgs version of German town law, known as Magdeburg rights, spread throughout Central, the city is also well known for the 1631 Sack of Magdeburg, which hardened Protestant resistance during the Thirty Years War. Prior to it Magdeburg was one of the largest German cities, Magdeburg was destroyed twice in its history. Magdeburg is the site of two universities, the Otto-von-Guericke University and the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, nowadays Magdeburg is a traffic junction as well as an industrial and trading centre. In 2005 Magdeburg celebrated its 1200th anniversary, in June 2013 Magdeburg was hit by record breaking flooding. Founded by Charlemagne in 805 as Magadoburg, the town was fortified in 919 by King Henry I the Fowler against the Magyars and Slavs. Edith loved the town and often lived there, at her death she was buried in the crypt of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Maurice, in 937, Magdeburg was the seat of a royal assembly. Otto I repeatedly visited Magdeburg and was buried in the cathedral. He granted the abbey the right to income from various tithes, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg was founded in 968 at the synod of Ravenna, Adalbert of Magdeburg was consecrated as its first archbishop. The archbishopric under Adalbert included the bishoprics of Havelberg, Brandenburg, Merseburg, Meissen, the archbishops played a prominent role in the German colonisation of the Slavic lands east of the Elbe river. In 1035 Magdeburg received a patent giving the city the right to hold exhibitions and conventions. These laws were adopted and modified throughout Central and Eastern Europe, visitors from many countries began to trade with Magdeburg. In the 13th century, Magdeburg became a member of the Hanseatic League, with more than 20,000 inhabitants Magdeburg was one of the largest cities in the Holy Roman Empire. The town had a maritime commerce on the west, with the countries of the North Sea. The citizens constantly struggled against the archbishop, becoming independent from him by the end of the 15th century. In about Easter 1497, the then twelve-year-old Martin Luther attended school in Magdeburg, in 1524, he was called to Magdeburg, where he preached and caused the citys defection from Catholicism. The Protestant Reformation had quickly found adherents in the city, where Luther had been a schoolboy, Emperor Charles V repeatedly outlawed the unruly town, which had joined the Alliance of Torgau and the Schmalkaldic League
8.
East Germany
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt
9.
DDR-Oberliga
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The DDR-Oberliga was the top level football league in East Germany. Following World War II, separate sports competitions emerged in the eastern and western halves of Germany. In East Germany, a football competition, the highest league in the East German football league system, was established in 1949 as the DS-Oberliga. Beginning in 1958, it carried the name DDR-Oberliga and was part of the structure within the DFV. In its inaugural season in 1949/50 the DDR-Oberliga was made up of 14 teams with 2 relegation spots, over the course of the next four seasons the number of teams in the division varied and included anywhere from 17 to 19 sides with 3 or 4 relegation spots. Beginning with the 1954/55 season up until merger of the East and West German football associations in 1991/92 the league was made up of 14 teams with 2 relegation spots, initially the DDR-Oberliga was operated on an autumn-spring schedule as was traditional in Germany. From 1956 to 1960 a Soviet-style spring-autumn schedule was in place and this required a transition round in 1955 and, although no champion was formally declared that season, Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt finished atop the division. 1961/62 saw the return of a season and an extended schedule was played with each club meeting the others a total of three times – once at home, once away, and once at a neutral venue. After German reunification the last regular DDR-Oberliga season was played in 1990/91 under the designation NOFV-Oberliga, for the duration of the leagues existence, the league below it was the DDR-Liga. In 1991, the DDR-Oberliga ceased to exist, its clubs being integrated in the German football league system, the fourteen Oberliga clubs went to the following leagues, spread over three tiers, To the Fussball-Bundesliga, Dynamo Dresden F. C. Hansa Rostock To the 2. Bundesliga Nord, FC Stahl Brandenburg To the 2, FC Magdeburg FC Energie Cottbus To the NOFV-Oberliga Süd, FC Sachsen Leipzig In 1994, a new third tier division was established in the area that formerly made up East Germany. The Regionalliga Nordost was made up of most of the big names of the DDR-era alongside clubs from West Berlin. The only clubs from the season of the old DDR-Oberliga not to appear here were F. C. Hansa Rostock, which was competing at the Bundesliga level. The league was disbanded again in 2000 and its clubs were spread between the two remaining Regionalligas and the NOFV-Oberligas, effectively ending the history of the all-East German leagues. The Regionalliga Nordost returned in 2012/13 as one of five regional leagues. Berliner FC Dynamo was the record holder with 10 DDR-Oberliga titles to its credit. Names shown are the ones the clubs carried over most of this seasons, the Chemie Leipzig and Chemie Böhlen merged in 1990, to form FC Sachsen Leipzig
10.
FDGB-Pokal
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The FDGB-Pokal was an elimination football tournament held annually in the former East Germany. It was the second most important national title in East German football after the DDR-Oberliga championship, the founder of the competition was East Germanys major trade union. The inaugural FDGB Pokal was contested in 1949, four years before the initial DFB-Pokal was played in the half of the country. The first national cup competition had been the Tschammerpokal introduced in 1935, each football club which participated in the East German football league system was entitled to enter the tournament. Clubs from the lower leagues played in qualification rounds, with the winners joining the teams of the DDR-Oberliga and DDR-Liga in the main round of the tournament of the following year. Each elimination was determined by a game held on the ground of one of the two participating teams. Until the mid-80s the field of competition was made up of as many as sixty teams playing in five rounds due to the number of eligible clubs in the country. Beginning in 1975 the final was held each year in the Berliner Stadion der Weltjugend and drew anywhere from 30,000 to 55,000 spectators. The last cup final, played in 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was a 1–0 victory by Hansa Rostock over Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt, the most successful side in 42 years of competition was 1. FC Magdeburg which celebrated seven FDGB Cup wins, one of those wins ultimately led to victory in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup 1973-74, the only winners of the competition to reach the final of the DFB-Pokal since the re-unification of the country are 1. FC Union Berlin, who appeared in the 2001 German Cup final, to date the only other former East German club to appear in the German Cup final is Energie Cottbus. The performance of clubs is shown in the following table, Notes,1 Also known as SC Rotation Leipzig. 2 Also known as Motor Jena,3 Also known as SG Planitz, Horch Zwickau, Motor Zwickau and Sachsenring Zwickau. 4 In 1953, the club was picked up from Leipzig and moved to East Berlin to play as ZSK Vorwärts Berlin, later ASK Vorwärts Berlin, in 1971, the club was picked up and moved again, this time from the capital to Frankfurt, Brandenburg. The team was known as FC Vorwärts Frankfurt,5 Also known as FC Sachsen Leipzig and SC Lokomotive Leipzig. 6 Also known as SG Freiimfelde Halle and Hallescher FC Chemie,7 Also known as Empor Rostock. 8 Also known as SG Aue, BSG Pneumatik Aue, Zentra Wismut Aue, in 1954 the team moved from Aue to Chemnitz. After German reunification in 1990, the club was renamed FC Wismut Aue before taking on its current name,9 Also known as BSG KWU Erfurt, Fortuna Erfurt, Turbine Erfurt
11.
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
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The UEFA Cup Winners Cup was a football club competition contested annually by the most recent winners of all European domestic cup competitions. The cup is one of the many inter-European club competitions that have been organised by UEFA, the first competition was held in the 1960–61 season — but not recognised by the governing body of European football until two years later. The final tournament was held in 1998–99, after which it was absorbed into the UEFA Cup, in the 1985–86 season, English clubs were banned from European competition. Consequently, Manchester United, Everton, Coventry City, Wimbledon, from 1972 onwards, the winner of the tournament progressed to play the winner of the European Cup in the UEFA Super Cup. Since the abolition of the UEFA Cup Winners Cup, the UEFA Super Cup place previously reserved for the Cup Winners Cup winner has been taken by the winner of the UEFA Cup, now UEFA Europa League. The competitions official name was originally the European Cup Winners Cup, in common with other UEFA club tournaments, the away goal applied when aggregate scores was parity. Following the influx of new UEFA member nations during the 1990s, however, if this team also qualified for the European Champions Cup then they would default on their place in the Cup Winners Cup and no other team would replace them. In 1998–99, the final year, Heerenveen of the Netherlands entered the Cup Winners Cup despite only reaching the semi-final of the previous seasons Dutch Cup. This was due to both Dutch Cup finalists Ajax and PSV Eindhoven qualifying for the recently expanded Champions League. The European Cup had proven to be a success and the Fairs Cup had also proven popular – as a result. One proposal was for a tournament based upon the format of the European Cup, but with national cup winners rather than league champions taking part, the inaugural Cup Winners Cup was held in the 1960–61 season and was basically a semi-official pilot tournament. It was essentially only in England, Scotland and to a lesser extent Germany, for the tournaments second season in 1961–62, UEFA took over the running of all aspects of the competition and this time all the clubs eligible to enter accepted the opportunity. By 1968, all UEFA member nations had set up domestic cup competitions due to the success of the Cup Winners Cup, UEFA regarded it as the second most prestigious competition, behind the European Cup and ahead of the Fairs Cup. Nevertheless, many commentators and fans regarded the Cup Winners Cup as weaker than the UEFA Cup, no club managed to retain the Cup Winners Cup, although eight times a winning side followed up their victories with a losing appearance in the following seasons final. After the establishment of the UEFA Champions League in the early 1990s, with the expansion of the Champions League in 1997 to allow more than one team from the highest-ranked member associations to enter, the Cup Winners Cup began to look noticeably inferior. Since then, domestic cup winners who do not otherwise qualify for the Champions League are given a place in the Europa League, the Cup Winners Cup trophy itself is a property of UEFA and it is not assigned to any club. Sport. Soccer Statistics Foundation UEFA website
12.
German reunification
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The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The united Germany is the continuation of the Federal Republic. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term reunification during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende, after 1990, the term die Wende became more common. The term generally refers to the events led up to the actual reunification, in its usual context. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the connotation of the time. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SEDs Secretary General Egon Krenz, the capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War, into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the Iron Curtain. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost, perestroika and taken to more progressive levels by Gorbachev. Further inspired by images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West, however, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germanys first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohls Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification, second, East Germanys economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the East German mark had been practically worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90 further magnified the problem. Discussions immediately began for a merger of the German economies
13.
SV Victoria 96 Magdeburg
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Viktoria 96 Magdeburg was a German football club playing in the Cracau district of Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt. The club was founded under the name Victoria on 26 June 1896 by twelve ninth-graders of Magdeburgs Guericke-Realschule, soon renamed Magdeburger Fußball-Club Viktoria von 1896, the club played association football exclusively by September 1897. This makes it the citys first football club, on 12 September 1897, Schüler-Victoria, as the club was also called, played their first competitive association football match against the reserve team of Cricket Viktoria Magdeburg. The match ended in a clear 6–3 win for Victoria 96, Victoria 1896 became well known among the countrys football pioneers and soon began to receive payments to make appearances against other clubs. Victoria was a member of the Ring Magdeburger Ballspielvereine, but this was replaced by the Verband Magdeburger Ballspielvereine that was founded in 1900. On 26 December 1900, MFC Victoria 1896 became a member of the Verband Mitteldeutscher Ballspielvereine. Alongside local rival Cricket Viktoria Magdeburg, the club was a member of the German Football Association at Leipzig in 1900. In 1905 the local Magdeburg league merged with the Verband Mitteldeutscher Ballspielvereine, the club played in the Gau Mittelelbe and continued their winning ways with six league titles between 1906 and 1917. Despite this record they were unable to make a return to the national stage, the club grew rapidly at this time and by 1920 had 728 members. Several new sports were adopted with track-and-field and watersports being especially popular, in 1912 the name was changed from Magdeburger FC Victoria 1896 to Sportverein Viktoria 96 Magdeburg and a new logo was introduced. Over the next years the club produced a number of outstanding athletes who became known as they won several national and international titles. The football team, however, became simply a regional side. In 1933 German football was re-organized under the Third Reich into sixteen new top-flight divisions known as Gauligas, Viktoria 96 qualified for play in the Gauliga Mitte where they played until a last place finish and bankruptcy in 1937 drove them out of first division football. The team merged with Männer-Turnverein 1860 Neustadt the following year to form VfL1860 Viktoria Neustadt which was disbanded at the end of World War II in 1945. However, the club had a revival in 2008, but was expelled from league play for failing to pay their fees during the 2008–09 season. The home ground of the club was the Sportplatz am Gübser Damm and it was opened in 1912 in front of 1,500 spectators with a friendly match against Hertha BSC. The stadium hosted the German championship final on 31 May 1914 in a contest that saw SpVgg Fürth beat VfB Leipzig 3,2 in extra time. After the bankruptcy of Viktoria 96 in 1937 the Allianz insurance company became the new owner of the stadium, the stadium was totally destroyed in heavy bombardments by Allied air forces in 1944
14.
Gauliga Mitte
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The Gauliga Mitte was the highest football league in the Prussian province of Saxony and the German states of Thuringia and Anhalt from 1933 to 1945, all located in the center of Germany. The league was introduced by the Nazi Sports Office in 1933 and it replaced the Bezirksligas and Oberligas as the highest level of play in German football competitions. Until the formation of the Gauliga, the region was covered by a number of leagues and, together with clubs from state of Saxony. In its first season, the league had ten clubs, playing each other once at home, the league champion then qualified for the German championship. The bottom two teams were relegated, the league operated on the same modus until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Due to the effects of the war, the 1939-40 and 1940-41 seasons were played only eight clubs. In 1941, the returned to a ten-club strength, which it retained until 1944. The imminent collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945 gravely affected all Gauligas, however, none of them played more than a few games before the arrival of the Red Army, and the end of the war ended all competitions. With the end of the Nazi era, the Gauligas ceased to exist, the DDR-Oberliga was formed in the following years as the highest level of play in the new country of East Germany and the region became part of the East German football league system. Virtually all football clubs in the region were dissolved and replaced with clubs controlled by the new communist government, of those, some readopted the pre-1945 names after the German reunification in 1990. com
15.
Cricket Viktoria Magdeburg
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Cricket Viktoria Magdeburg was a German association football club playing in the Cracau district of Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt. Interest in football grew quickly and in 1900 Cricket Viktoria, along with local rival SV Viktoria 96 Magdeburg, Cricket Viktoria never developed any sort of national presence in the period leading up to World War II. In 1921 the football department of MTV1848 Magdeburg joined the club, German football was re-organized in 1933 under the Third Reich into sixteen top flight Gauligen. At the time Cricket Viktoria played in the second division Bezirksklasse Magdeburg-Anhalt and they played at the top flight until a last place finish and relegation in 1942 after the club had been weakened by the draft of many its players into the army. The teams best results were second-place finishes in 1936 and 1938, like most organizations in Germany, including football and sports clubs, Cricket Viktoria was disbanded in 1945 by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany at the end of World War II. Late in the year the formation of new clubs was permitted, others, such as future star Ernst Anti Kümmel joined SG Sudenburg, which would soon become 1. Many clubs in what would become East Germany underwent a several of name changes, SG Magdeburg-Altstadt become BSG Grün-Rot Stadt Magdeburg in 1949 and then BSG Einheit Magdeburg in 1950. This teams football department left to join BSG Aufbau Börde Magdeburg in 1952, Börde is still active today as MSV Börde 1949. On 6 June 2004 a new side calling itself Cricket 04 Magdeburg was established by the footballers of WSG Cracau. The club first played its matches in the Großer Cracauer Anger, the opening match held there was a friendly against SpVgg Fürth on Sunday,20 August 1922. The team from Fürth, one of the dominant sides of the time, in 1932 the stadium was modified and now had a capacity of 40,000. On 5 November 1933, the ground hosted the first match played by a German national team in Magdeburg. Germany drew 2–2 against Norway in front of 40,000 spectators, in 1936, as part of the ongoing re-armament of the German military during the mid-1930s, the property was reclaimed by the army. The stadium was demolished and military barracks were erected, after losing their ground, they moved to the Polizeistadion am Hasselbachplatz in the Altstadt district. It was his first and last appearance for the side as he scored an own goal in a 3–5 defeat against Switzerland and his performance received poor reviews in the sports pages of the day
16.
SC Magdeburg
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SC Magdeburg is a German multi-sports club located in the city of Magdeburg, which offers athletics, canoeing, gymnastics, rowing, swimming and handball. Historically, the club has also had a water polo section as well as a section that was separated as 1. The club is most famous for its team which has won the Champions League. The club also won the East German handball championship ten times from 1970 to 1991, the handball side is the only team to have won the all titles in East Germany and the unified country after 1990
17.
East German football league system
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The football league system of the German Democratic Republic existed from the creation of the DDR-Oberliga in 1949 until shortly after German reunification in 1990. From 1949 until 1991 East Germany had its own league system. It had its own league called Oberliga which existed throughout the whole GDR history. Since 1954 the DDR-Oberliga consisted of 14 teams, the two worst-placed teams were relegated to the Liga, which was introduced in 1950. Following the dissolution of the five federal states the five old Landesliga divisions were replaced by 15 new Bezirksliga divisions as the level of the league system. By 1955 however, there was change in the league system as the 2nd DDR-Liga was created as a level between the DDR-Liga and the Bezirksligen. In 1962, the DDR-Liga was once divided into two divisions and a year later the 2nd DDR-Liga was abandoned. In 1971 the DDR-Liga was divided into five Divisions, and for that reason was now similar to the Landesliga of the 1940s, the five division champions played a qualification round to determine which clubs would promote to the Oberliga. From 1984 to 1991, the Liga consisted of two divisions again, whose champions were promoted to the Oberliga. Below the two DDR-Liga divisions were the fifteen Bezirksligen whose champions had to play a round to determine the six clubs that would move up to the 2nd Division. Below the Bezirksliga there were Bezirksklasse, Kreisliga and, at the lowest level, several Kreisklasse divisions, the 1989-90 season was the last true season of DDR football. The league system presented here had been in use since 1984, all leagues at the same level run parallel. Leagues below the Bezirksliga not shown, the boundary between the two 2nd Divisions was geographically not fixed, teams promoted from the Bezirksligen in the central part of East Germany could end up in either league. The allocation of the Bezirksligen to the 2nd Division shown here is therefore a guide only, Bezirksliga Karl-Marx-Stadt changed its name to Bezirksliga Chemnitz on 21 June 1990. The 1989-90 season was the last before the reunification of Germany in October 1990, one more season was played after that before the two league systems were integrated. Also, the DDR-Oberliga was renamed NOFV-Oberliga, all leagues on the same level run parallel. Leagues below the Bezirksligen not shown, the clubs in the East German league system were very similar to clubs in other eastern European communist countries and therefore very different from the rest of Europe. Free, uncontrolled formation of sports or football clubs was not possible, erich Mielke, head of the Stasi was the patron of all Dynamo clubs and especially of Dynamo Berlin, resulting in very favorable results for those clubs
18.
Dessau
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Dessau is a city in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the new city of Dessau-Roßlau, Dessau is situated on a floodplain where the Mulde flows into the Elbe. The worst flood took place in the year 2002, when the Waldersee district was completely flooded. The south of Dessau touches a well-wooded area called Mosigkauer Heide, the highest elevation is a 110m high former rubbish dump called Scherbelberg in the southwest of Dessau. Dessau is surrounded by parks and palaces that ranks Dessau as one of the greenest towns in Germany. Dessau was first mentioned in 1213 and it became an important centre in 1570, when the Principality of Anhalt was founded. Dessau became the capital of state within the Holy Roman Empire. Anhalt was dissolved In 1603 it was split into four – later five – Anhalts, in 1863 two of the noble line died out, and became reunited. Dessau is famous for its college of architecture Bauhaus and it moved here in 1925 after it had been forced to close in Weimar. Many famous artists were lecturers in Dessau in the years, among them Walter Gropius, Paul Klee. The Nazis forced the closure of the Bauhaus in 1931, the city was almost completely destroyed by Allied air raids in World War II on March 7,1945, six weeks before American troops occupied the town. Afterwards it was rebuilt with typical GDR concrete slab architecture and became an industrial centre of East Germany. Since German reunification in 1990 many historic buildings have been restored, the composer Kurt Weill was born in Dessau. Since 1993 the city has hosted an annual Kurt Weill Festival, Dessau was also the birthplace of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, a lauded field marshal for the Kingdom of Prussia. Since January 7,2005, Dessau has gained notoriety for the death of Sierra Leonean convicted drug trafficker. According to local police, Jalloh, who was drunk and had tied to his bed because he was volatile and violent, set his own mattress on fire. A local court acquitted officers in 2008, in 2010, however, a higher federal court declared the ruling null and void, and ordered a new investigation and trial be launched. The Bauhaus College itself was constructed based on designs by Walter Adolph Georg Gropius, Dessau Hauptbahnhof has connections to Magdeburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, Bitterfeld and Lutherstadt Wittenberg
19.
1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig
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The team won the 2015-16 NOFV-Oberliga Süd and qualified for the 2016–17 Regionalliga Nordost, where it will face former East German champions FC Carl Zeiss Jena and BFC Dynamo. The club was formed on 26 May 1896 out of the department of gymnastics club Allgemeine Turnverein 1845 Leipzig. The union lasted until 2 May 1900 when the two went their separate ways again. VfB Leipzig was one of the original eighty-six teams that came together in the city in 1900 to form the German Football Association and they were immediately successful at their chosen sport and made their way to the first German national championship final held in 1903. Their opponents were DFC Prag, an ethnically German side from Prague, the DFB had invited German clubs of this sort from other countries in order to boost numbers in their new national association. DFC Prag had made their way to the final under circumstances that had allowed them to playing a single playoff game. Arriving in Hamburg for the match, the heavily favoured Pragers took themselves off on a pub crawl the night before the contest. The contest against was delayed half an hour as officials scrambled to find a football that was in good condition, the host, FC93 Altona Hamburg, provided a new ball and eleven minutes in, DFC Prag scored the first goal. Leipzig played themselves into another final appearance in 1904, but the match was never contested, a protest by FV Karlsruhe over their disputed semi-final with Britannia Berlin was never resolved and the DFB called off the final only hours before its scheduled start. There would be no champion that year, the following season Leipzig found themselves unable to cover the expense of travelling to participate in their scheduled first round playoff match and so were eliminated from that years competition. They did, however, go on to raise the Viktoria again in 1906 and 1913, in the period leading up to World War II, VfB was unable to repeat their early success. After the re-organization of German football leagues under the Third Reich in 1933, while they earned good results within their own division, they were unable to advance in the playoff rounds. In 1937, they captured the Tschammerpokal, known today as the German Cup, in a match against FC Schalke 04, the dominant side of the era. The club, like most other organizations in Germany, including sports, club members reconstituted the team in 1946 as SG Probstheida under the auspices of the occupying Soviets. In 1963 Leipzigs two most important clubs – SC Rotation and SC Lokomotive Leipzig – were put together resulting in two new sides being founded – SC Leipzig and BSG Chemie Leipzig. East German football went through a general re-organization in 1965, creating football clubs as centres of high-level football, FC Lokomotive Leipzig, while rivals Chemie Leipzig continued as a Betriebssportgemeinschaft, or a company team. Lok earned a clutch of East German Cups with victories in 1976,1981,1986 and 1987 against failed appearances in the Cup final in 1970,1973 and 1977. They also won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1966 and made an appearance in the 1987 final of the UEFA Cup Winners Cup falling 0,1 to Johan Cruijffs Ajax Amsterdam after a Marco van Basten goal
20.
Galatasaray S.K. (football)
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Galatasaray Spor Kulübü, also known simply as Galatasaray, is a Turkish professional football club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Galatasaray is the most successful Turkish football club and they have won 70 domestic trophies, including 20 Süper Lig titles, a 17 Turkish Cups and a 13 Turkish Super Cups. Internationally, Galatasaray has won the UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup in 2000, becoming the first and only Turkish team to win a major UEFA competition. In the 1999–2000 season, the club achieved the feat of completing a quadruple by winning the Turkish Süper Lig, the Turkish Cup, the UEFA Cup. Galatasaray is also the only Turkish club to have been ranked 1st on the IFFHS World Rankings, since 2011, the clubs stadium is the 52,652 capacity Türk Telekom Arena in Seyrantepe, Istanbul. The club has a rivalry with other major Istanbul teams, namely with Beşiktaş. As a result of the teams championship for the 2014–15 season of the Süper Lig. Each star corresponds to the teams 5 championships, Galatasaray SK was founded in October 1905 by Ali Sami Yen and other students of Galatasaray High School as a football club. Ali Sami Yen became Galatasaray SKs first president and was given the membership number 1. The teams first match was against Cadi-Keuy FC and Galatasaray won this match with a score of 2–0, there were discussions about the clubs name, in which some suggested Gloria and others Audace, but it was decided that its name would be Galatasaray. According to researcher Cem Atabeyoğlu, Galatasaray took its name one of its first matches. In 1905, during the era of the Ottoman Empire, there were no laws for associations so the club could not be registered officially, but, after the 1912 Law of Association, the club registered legally. Among with the founder Ali Sami Yen, the co-founders were the ones who were keen to do sport, such as Asım Tevfik Sonumut, Reşat Şirvani, Cevdet Kalpakçıoğlu, Abidin Daver. Since there werent any other Turkish teams, Galatasaray joined the Istanbul League that was consisting of English, with their first championship title they won in 1908–1909, they heralded the beginning of Turkish football history. While football in Turkey began to develop, Galatasaray won ten more Istanbul League titles, six Sunday League titles. Upon the initiation of professional football in 1952, the first professional but non-national league of Turkey, Galatasaray won three of these seven titles. This is the professional league in Turkish nationwide football. Galatasaray joined all seasons and won 20 league titles since then, 2=2 The Turkish Football Federation starts to organize Turkish Cup in the 1962–63 season for Turkish clubs to qualify for the UEFA competitions
21.
Coin flipping
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Coin flipping, coin tossing, or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air to choose between two alternatives, sometimes to resolve a dispute between two parties. It is a form of sortition which inherently has only two possible and equally likely outcomes, the historical origin of coin flipping is the interpretation of a chance outcome as the expression of divine will. Coin flipping as a game was known to the Romans as navia aut caput, as some coins had a ship on one side, in England, this game was referred to as cross and pile. The expression Heads or Tails results from heads and tails being considered opposite body parts, during a coin toss, the coin is thrown into the air such that it rotates edge-over-edge several times. Either beforehand or when the coin is in the air, an interested party calls heads or tails, the other party is assigned the opposite side. Depending on custom, the coin may be caught, caught and inverted, when the coin comes to rest, the toss is complete and the party who called correctly or was assigned the upper side is declared the winner. It is possible for a coin to land on its edge, however, even on a flat surface it is possible for a coin to land on its edge, with a chance of about 1 in 6000. Angular momentum typically prevents most coins from landing on their edges unsupported if flipped, such cases in which a coin does land on its edge are exceptionally rare and in most cases the coin is simply re-flipped. The coin may be any type as long as it has two sides, it need not be a circulating coin as such. Larger coins tend to be more popular than smaller ones, most high-profile coin tosses use custom-made ceremonial medallions. Three-way coin flips are also possible, by a different process – this can be either to choose two out of three, or to choose one out of three. To choose two out of three, three coins are flipped, and if two coins come up the same and one different, the different one loses, leaving two players. To choose one out of three, either reverse this, or add a regular two-way coin flip between the players as a second step. Note that the flip is 75% likely to work each time it is tried. A legacy of this coin flip was to reduce the use of coin flips to break ties in Texas sports, Coin tossing is a simple and unbiased way of settling a dispute or deciding between two or more arbitrary options. In a game theoretic analysis it provides even odds to both involved, requiring little effort and preventing the dispute from escalating into a struggle. Factors such as direction, the position of the sun. In team sports it is often the captain who makes the call, a competitive method may be used instead of a toss in some situations, for example in basketball the jump ball is employed, while the face-off plays a similar role in ice hockey
22.
FC Carl Zeiss Jena
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FC Carl Zeiss Jena is a German football club based in Jena, Thuringia. The club was founded in May 1903 by workers at the Carl Zeiss AG optics factory as the company-sponsored Fussball-Club der Firma Carl Zeiss, the club underwent name changes in 1911 to Fussball Club Carl Zeiss Jena e. V. and in March 1917 to 1. SV Jena joined the Gauliga Mitte, one of 16 top-flight divisions formed in the reorganization of German football under the Third Reich, the team captured division titles in 1935,1936,1940, and 1941. This earned Jena entry to the finals, but they performed poorly and were never able to advance out of preliminary-round group play. After the 1943–44 season, the Gauliga Mitte broke up into a collection of city-based leagues as World War II overtook the area, in the immediate aftermath of the war, associations of all types were banned in Germany by the occupying Allied authorities. In the aftermath of World War II, East German authorities tagged sports teams with the names of socialist heroes, Ernst Abbe was a local son and he made an early contribution to easing the plight of workers by introducing the 8-hour work day at the Zeiss plant. In 1950 the club became a member of the DDR Liga. Renamed SC Motor Jena in 1954, they played their way back to the league by 1957. Jena won its first honours with the capture of the FDGB-Pokal in 1960, the club was re-founded as FC Carl Zeiss Jena in January 1966, and became one of East Germanys football clubs, focus centres for the development of talented players for the national side. Jena would go on to become a dominant side in the DDR-Oberliga between then and 1975 and they took two more national titles in 1968 and 1970, but finished in second place another half-dozen times to sides like Vorwärts Berlin, Dynamo Dresden and 1. In addition to their titles, FCC captured East German Cups in 1972,1974 and 1980. The club also appeared in the 1981 European Cup Winners Cup final and this was arguably the clubs greatest achievement. After German reunification in 1990, Jena was seeded into the 2 and their second-place finish in 1992 deteriorated into a 17th-place finish in 1994 and relegation to Regionalliga Nordost. They won immediate re-promotion, and played for three years at the tier-II level. Since 1999 the team has primarily played tier III and IV football, bundesliga in 2007–08, avoiding relegation by winning 2–1 away against FC Augsburg in their final match of the season. They would finish last in the 2, bundesliga in 2007–08, returning to the third tier. However, this would not be one of the Regionalligen, the German Football Association launched the new 3, Liga for 2008–09, of which Jena was a charter member. On 9 November 2009 Chairman Peter Schreiber announced his retirement, on 13 November the executive board accepted his resignation, the second team was involved in the 2009 European football betting scandal, accused of match-fixing in the game against ZFC Meuselwitz
23.
DDR-Liga
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The DDR-Liga was, prior to German reunification in 1990, the second level of football competition in the DDR, being roughly equivalent to the Bundesliga in West Germany. The league was established two divisions of ten teams each in 1950 as the level of play below the DDR-Oberliga. It remained the second tier in various configurations throughout its existence until it was disbanded in 1991, the champion of each division was directly promoted to the Oberliga. While not having geographical tags attached to the division, Staffel 1 was originally equivalent to a Northern Division while Staffel 2 was the Southern Division. The system was not static however, clubs were moved between groups to balance out league numbers, and sometimes also for political reasons. In the same way, clubs were moved between cities out of a variety of reasons. In its second season, the divisions were expanded to twelve teams each, the year 1954 saw the creation of a third group, Staffel 3, making geographical categorizing more difficult, but essentially One was north, Two was south and Three was central. The league system changed completely in 1955, East Germany followed the example of the Soviet Union and switched to a calendar year system, resulting in a shortened autumn competition for 1955 only with a single division, fourteen-team format. From the 1956 season the league continued to operate as a single format with the top two teams gaining promotion. After the 1960 season, the league reverted to the system of playing from autumn to spring. This meant that the 1961-62 season, as a transition season, the year after, the league returned to two divisions, North and South, still with fourteen clubs each and the winners gaining promotion. In 1963, the two divisions were expanded to sixteen clubs each, the year after, all five divisions had twelve clubs. The new system meant that not all league winners could be directly promoted, instead, the five champions played a promotion round with the top two teams gaining entry to the Oberliga. Until 1976, reserve teams of Oberliga clubs were permitted in the DDR-Liga and they were then banned from entering the second tier in order to increase the appeal of the leagues as attendance for matches involving reserve teams in Germany never were particularly high. This also resulted in the promotion round now definitely being played by the league champions, previously, when one of the five divisions was won by a reserve team, the best placed first team from the division was entered in the promotion round. The year 1984 saw the DDR-Liga revert to a system, now with eighteen clubs per division. Also, reserve teams were re-admitted to the league but still barred from promotion to the Oberliga, the 1989-90 season was the last under the old East German system, in the following season the league operated under the name of NOFV-Liga, meaning Nordostdeutscher Fussballverband-Liga. The majority of clubs moved away from their, mostly communist, background, in its final season, 1990–91, the league was under the authority of the DFB, the German Football Association
24.
West Ham United F.C.
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West Ham United Football Club is a professional football club based in Stratford, East London, England. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football, in 2016 the club re-located to the London Stadium. The club was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United and they moved to the Boleyn Ground in 1904, which remained their home ground for more than a century. The team initially competed in the Southern League and Western League before joining the Football League in 1919 and they were promoted to the top flight in 1923, when they also losing finalists in the first FA Cup Final held at Wembley. In 1940, the won the inaugural Football League War Cup. West Ham have been winners of the FA Cup three times, in 1964,1975, and 1980, and have also been runners-up twice, in 1923, and 2006. The club have reached two major European finals, winning the European Cup Winners Cup in 1965 and finishing runners up in the competition in 1976. West Ham also won the Intertoto Cup in 1999 and they are one of eight clubs never to have fallen below the second tier of English football, spending 59 of 91 league seasons in the top flight, up to and including the 2016–17 season. The clubs highest league position to date came in 1985–86 when they achieved third place in the then First Division, three West Ham players were members of the 1966 World Cup final-winning England team, captain Bobby Moore and goalscorers Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. The club, Thames Ironworks were the first ever winners of the West Ham Charity Cup in 1895 contested by clubs in the West Ham locality and they turned professional in 1898 upon entering the Southern League Second Division, and were promoted to the First Division at the first attempt. The following year they came second from bottom, but had established themselves as a fully fledged competitive team and they comfortably fended off the challenge of local rivals Fulham in a relegation play-off, 5–1 in late April 1900 and retained their First Division status. In 1899, they acquired their now-traditional home kit combination of claret shirts and sky blue sleeves in a wager involving Aston Villa players, because of the original works team roots and links, they are still known as the Irons or the Hammers amongst fans and the media. West Ham Utd joined the Western League for the 1901 season while continuing to play in the Southern Division 1. In 1907, West Ham were crowned the Western League Division 1B Champions, the reborn club continued to play their games at the Memorial Grounds in Plaistow but moved to a pitch in the Upton Park area in the guise of the Boleyn Ground stadium in 1904. The Cup Final match itself ended 2–0 to Bolton, the team enjoyed mixed success in Division 1 but retained their status for ten years and reached the FA Cup semi-final in 1933. In 1932, the club was relegated to Division Two and long term custodian Syd King was sacked after serving the club in the role of manager for 32 years, following relegation, King had mental health problems. He appeared drunk at a meeting and soon after committed suicide. The club spent most of the next 30 years in division, first under Paynter
25.
Bobby Moore
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Robert Frederick Chelsea Bobby Moore OBE was an English professional footballer. He captained West Ham United for more than ten years and was captain of the England team that won the 1966 World Cup. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest defenders of all time, Moore is a member of the World Team of the 20th Century. He won a total of 108 caps for the England team and this record was later broken by 125-cap goalkeeper Peter Shilton. Moores total of 108 caps continued as a record for players until 28 March 2009. Moore was made an inaugural inductee of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his impact on the English game as a player, the same year he was named in the BBCs list of the 100 Greatest Britons. Moore was born in Barking, Essex and he attended Westbury Primary School and Tom Hood School, Leytonstone, playing football for both schools. In 1956, Moore joined West Ham United as a player and, after advancing through their youth set-up, in putting on the number six shirt, he replaced his mentor Malcolm Allison, who was suffering from tuberculosis. Allison never played another first team game for West Ham nor indeed any other First Division game as Moore became a regular. Indeed, Moores ability to head the ball or keep up with the pace was average at best, Bobby Moore also played county cricket for the Essex youth team alongside fellow West Ham player Geoff Hurst. In 1960, Moore earned a call up to the England Under-23 squad, Moore was uncapped as he flew to South America with the rest of the squad, but made his début on 20 May 1962 in Englands final pre-tournament friendly – a 4–0 win over Peru in Lima. Also débuting that day was Tottenham Hotspur defender Maurice Norman, on 29 May 1963, 22-year-old Moore captained his country for the first time in just his 12th appearance after the retirement of Johnny Haynes and an injury to his successor, Jimmy Armfield. He was the youngest man ever to captain England at the highest level,1964 turned out to be quite an eventful year for Moore. As well as gaining the England captaincy, he lifted the FA Cup as West Ham defeated Preston North End 3–2 in the final at Wembley, on a personal level, Moore also was successfully treated for testicular cancer and was named the Football Writers Association Footballer of the Year. The FA Cup success would become the first of three successful Wembley finals in as many years for Moore, in 1965, he lifted the European Cup Winners Cup after West Ham defeated 1860 Munich 2–0 in the final with both goals coming from Alan Sealey. By now he was the first choice captain for England with 30 caps,1966 had a mixed start for Moore. For Moore, who had scored in the first leg, and his West Ham team-mates Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, Moore scored his second and ultimately final England goal in a friendly against Norway, two weeks before the World Cup would begin. On the verge of his greatest triumph, details were released to the press in early 1966 that Moore wanted to leave West Ham
26.
Geoff Hurst
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Sir Geoffrey Charles Hurst MBE is a former England international footballer. A striker, he remains the man to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final as England recorded a 4–2 victory over West Germany at the old Wembley in 1966. He began his career with West Ham United, where he scored 242 goals in 500 first team appearances, there he won the FA Cup in 1964 and the European Cup Winners Cup 1965. He was sold to Stoke City in 1972 for £80,000, after three seasons with Stoke he finished his Football League career with West Bromwich Albion in 1976. Hurst went to football in Ireland and the USA before returning to England to manage non-league Telford United. He also coached in the England set-up before a stint as Chelsea manager from 1979 to 1981. He later coached Kuwait SC before leaving the game to concentrate on his business commitments, in total he scored 24 goals in 49 England appearances, and as well as success in the 1966 World Cup he also appeared at UEFA Euro 1968 and the 1970 FIFA World Cup. He also had a cricket career, making one First-class appearance for Essex in 1962. Hurst was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, on 8 December 1941 and he had two younger siblings, Diane and Robert. His family moved to Chelmsford, Essex when he was six years old and his father, Charlie Hurst, was a professional footballer who played at centre-half for Bristol Rovers, Oldham Athletic and Rochdale. His mother, Evelyn Hopkins, was from a Gloucestershire family with her mothers side originally from Germany, as a teenager he was obsessed with football, and was once fined £1 for disturbing the peace after consistently kicking a football into his neighbours garden. However, he appeared 23 times in the Essex Second XI between 1962 and 1964, usually as a wicketkeeper, before concentrating entirely on football, hursts footballing career began when he was apprenticed to West Ham United at the age of 15. Manager Ted Fenton first selected him for a game in a Southern Flootlight Cup tie with Fulham in December 1958. He turned professional at the four months later, and was paid £7 a week with a £20 signing on fee. His first competitive appearance came in February 1960 when injuries forced Fentons hand, Hurst put in an indifferent performance and he made only two further appearances in the 1959–60 season, and realised that Bobby Moore was making better progress in the same position than he was. He played six times in the 1960–61 campaign and seriously considered turning his focus to cricket. In April 1961 Ron Greenwood took over as manager, and drastically changed team training by putting a focus on footballing skill rather than physical fitness. However he again missed pre-season training the summer and was dropped after proving to be unfit during the opening game of the 1962–63 season
27.
Dynamo Dresden
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Sportgemeinschaft Dynamo Dresden e. V. commonly known as SG Dynamo Dresden or Dynamo Dresden, is a German association football club, based in Dresden, Saxony. It was founded on 12 April 1953, as an affiliated with the East German police. After the reunification of Germany, Dynamo played four seasons in the top division Bundesliga, the club will begin the 2016–17 season in the 2. The city of Dresden had played a significant part in German football before, after the war the occupying Allied authorities dissolved organizations across the country, including sports and football clubs like SC, as part of the process of denazification. DSC was reestablished in 1946 as SG Friedrichstadt, but with the part of the country, including Dresden, under Soviet control. After a riot at the final of the 1950 East German championship, the city needed a new, ideologically safe representative, and a new football club as founded, as part of SG Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden. A team was assembled with players delegated from 11 other police-affiliated clubs, in April 1953, the central sports society SV Dynamo was founded, to which VP Dresden were affiliated, taking the name of SG Dynamo Dresden. Shortly after this the club claimed its first East German title and this success, though, proved to be the clubs undoing. Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi, of which Dynamo were now part, was unhappy that Dresden was enjoying footballing success, while the capital, East Berlin, in 1954, Dynamos team were moved to Berlin, to form Dynamo Berlin. Dynamo Dresden were left with a composed of youth and reserve players. They began to climb the leagues, though, and by 1962 they were back in the DDR-Oberliga and they recovered equally well from another relegation in 1968, and remained in the Oberliga from 1969 until its dissolution in 1991. Dynamo Dresden were one of these, although retained the title of Sportgemeinschaft. During the 1970s, Dynamo established themselves as one of the top teams in East Germany and they won five league titles, and two cups. FC Magdeburg for domination of the league, and became the most popular the side in the country, regularly drawing crowds of 25,000, around three times what other clubs were attracting. During this time Dynamo came up against West German opposition for the first time, on three occasions they were eliminated by English side Liverpool, twice in the UEFA Cup and once in the European Cup, and each time Liverpool went on to win the competition. In 1973, Hans-Jürgen Kreische was the first Dynamo Dresden player to be named East German Footballer of the Year, Kreische was the leagues leading goalscorer on four occasions, and was named in East Germanys squad for the 1974 World Cup, along with team-mate Siegmar Wätzlich. History was to repeat itself, though, at the end of the 1970s, East German football had generally been set up in favour of the Fußballclubs, who were usually delegated the best players, but the authorities had usually kept out of on-pitch matters. This changed in the late-1970s and 80s though, as players, BFC won ten consecutive titles, from 1979 to 1988
28.
1974 FIFA World Cup
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The 1974 FIFA World Cup, the tenth staging of the World Cup, was held in West Germany from 13 June to 7 July. The tournament marked the first time that the current trophy, the FIFA World Cup Trophy, the previous trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, had been won for the third time by Brazil in 1970 and awarded permanently to the Brazilians. The host nation won the title beating the Netherlands in the final, the victory was the second for West Germany, who had also won in 1954. Australia, East Germany, Haiti and Zaire made their first appearances at the stage. West Germany was chosen as the host nation by FIFA in London, hosting rights for the 1978 and 1982 tournaments were awarded at the same time. West Germany agreed a deal with Spain by which Spain would support West Germany for the 1974 tournament, ninety-eight countries took part in the qualifying tournament, and some of footballs most successful nations did not qualify. The USSR was disqualified after the playoff against Chile,16 teams qualified, divided into four groups of four. Each played a round-robin with two points for a win and one for a draw, and goal difference used to separate teams level on points, the top two teams from each group advanced to the next stage. However, in a change from the used in the previous five competitions, the second round consisted of another group stage. The winners of each played each other in the final. The tournament was held mostly in bad weather, and the stadia had few protected places, few western European nations had qualified, of which most were eliminated early. Fans from the Eastern neighbor states were hindered by political circumstances, carlos Caszely of Chile became the first player to be sent off with a red card in a World Cup match, during their match against West Germany. Red cards were introduced in World Cup play in 1970. Two teams made a powerful impact on the first round. The Dutch marked their first World Cup finals since 1938 by topping their group, with wins over Uruguay and Bulgaria. Sweden joined the Dutch in the group round after beating Uruguay 3–0. Poland, meanwhile, took points from a group containing two of the favourites for the tournament. They beat Argentina 3–2, trounced Haiti 7–0, then beat Italy 2–1 – a result that knocked the Italians out of the Cup, while Haiti didnt do particularly well in their first World Cup finals they did have one moment of glory
29.
Juventus F.C.
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Juventus Football Club S. p. A. colloquially known as Juve, is a professional Italian association football club based in Turin, Piedmont. The clubs fan base is larger than any other Italian football club and is one of the largest worldwide, support for Juventus is widespread throughout the country and abroad, mainly in countries with a significant presence of Italian immigrants. Juventus is the most successful club in Italian football and one of the most awarded globally, Juventus were founded as Sport-Club Juventus in late 1897 by pupils from the Massimo DAzeglio Lyceum school in Turin, but were renamed as Foot-Ball Club Juventus two years later. The club joined the Italian Football Championship during 1900, during this period the team wore a pink and black kit. Juventus first won the championship in 1905 while playing at their Velodrome Umberto I ground. By this time the colours had changed to black and white stripes. There was a split at the club in 1906, after some of the staff considered moving Juve out of Turin, President Alfred Dick was unhappy with this and left with some prominent players to found FBC Torino which in turn spawned the Derby della Mole. Juventus spent much of this period steadily rebuilding after the split, fiat owner Edoardo Agnelli gained control of the club in 1923, and built a new stadium. This helped the club to its second scudetto in the 1925–26 season beating Alba Roma with a score of 12–1. With star players such as Raimundo Orsi, Luigi Bertolini, Giovanni Ferrari, Juventus moved to the Stadio Comunale, but for the rest of the 1930s and the majority of the 1940s they were unable to recapture championship dominance. After the Second World War, Gianni Agnelli was appointed honorary president, the club added two more league championships to its name in the 1949–50 and 1951–52 seasons, the latter of which was under the management of Englishman Jesse Carver. Two new strikers were signed during 1957–58, Welshman John Charles and Italo-Argentine Omar Sívori and that season saw Juventus awarded with the Golden Star for Sport Excellence to wear on their shirts after becoming the first Italian side to win ten league titles. In the same season, Sívori became the first ever player at the club to win the European Footballer of the Year, the following season they beat Fiorentina to complete their first league and cup double, winning Serie A and Coppa Italia. Boniperti retired in 1961 as the top scorer at the club, with 182 goals in all competitions. During the rest of the decade, the won the league just once more in 1966–67, The 1970s, however. Under former player Čestmír Vycpálek, they won the scudetto in 1971–72 and 1972–73, with such as Roberto Bettega, Franco Causio. During the rest of the decade, they won the league twice more, the Trapattoni era was highly successful in the 1980s, the club started the decade off well, winning the league title three more times by 1984. This meant Juventus had won 20 Italian league titles and were allowed to add a golden star to their shirt
30.
A.C. Milan
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Associazione Calcio Milan, commonly referred to as A. C. Milan, is a professional football club in Milan, Italy, founded in 1899. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 and 1982–83 seasons, in the top flight of Italian football, known as Serie A since 1929–30. With 18 officially recognised UEFA and FIFA titles, they are the fourth most successful club in the world, with 18 league titles, Milan is the joint-second most successful club in Serie A, along with local rivals Internazionale. They have also won the Coppa Italia five times, and the Supercoppa Italiana seven, Milans home games are played at San Siro, also known as the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. The stadium, which is shared with city rivals Internazionale, is the largest in Italian football, inter are considered their biggest rivals, and matches between the two teams are called Derby della Madonnina, which is one of the most followed derbies in football. The owner of the club is former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the club is one of the wealthiest in Italian and world football. It was a member of the now-defunct G-14 group of Europes leading football clubs as well as its replacement. A. C. Milan was founded as Milan Cricket and Foot-Ball Club on 13 December 1899 by English expatriates Alfred Edwards and Herbert Kilpin, who came from the English city of Nottingham. In honour of its English origins, the club has retained the English spelling of the name, as opposed to the Italian spelling Milano. Milan won its first Italian championship in 1901 and a two in succession in 1906 and 1907. In 1908, Milan experienced a split caused by disagreements over the signing of foreign players. Following these events, Milan did not manage to win a domestic title until 1950–51. The 1950s saw the return to the top of Italian football, headed by the famous Gre-No-Li Swedish trio Gunnar Gren, Gunnar Nordahl. This was one of the clubs most successful periods domestically, with the Scudetto going to Milan in 1951,1955,1957,1959 and 1962, in 1963, Milan won its first continental title by beating Benfica in the final of the European Cup. This success was repeated in 1969, with a 4–1 win over Ajax in the final, during this period Milan also won its first Coppa Italia, with victory over Padova in the 1967 final, and two European Cup Winners Cups, in 1967–68 and 1972–73. Milan won a league title in 1979, but after the retirement of Gianni Rivera in the same year. The club was involved in the 1980 Totonero scandal and as punishment was relegated to Serie B for the first time in its history, the scandal was centred around a betting syndicate paying players and officials to fix the outcome of matches. Milan achieved promotion back to Serie A at the first attempt, winning the 1980–81 Serie B title, in 1983, Milan won the Serie B title for the second time in three seasons to return to Serie A, where they achieved a sixth-place finish in 1983–84
31.
De Kuip
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Stadion Feijenoord, more commonly known by its nickname De Kuip, is a stadium in Rotterdam, Netherlands that was completed in 1937. The name is derived from the area Feijenoord in Rotterdam, the stadiums original capacity was 64,000. In 1949 it was expanded to 69,000, and in 1994 it was renovated again for a capacity of 51,117. In 1999, a significant amount of restoration and interior work took place at the prior to its use as a venue in the Euro 2000 tournament. Contemporary examples were Highbury, where the West and East stands had been built as a double deck. In fact, de Kuip acted as an example for many of the greatest stadia we know today, the stadium was co-financed by the billionaire Daniël George van Beuningen, who made his fortune in World War I, exporting coal from Germany to Britain through neutral Netherlands. In World War II, the stadium was torn down for scrap by German occupiers. After the war the stadiums capacity was expanded and stadium lights were added, on 29 October 1991 De Kuip was named as being one of Rotterdams monuments. In 1994 the stadium was renovated to its present form, It became an all seater. An extra building was constructed for use by Feyenoord, it also houses a restaurant. As of January 2007, the stadium can be found in 3D format on Google Earth, next to De Kuip and Feyenoords training ground there is another, but smaller sports arena, the Topsportcentrum Rotterdam. This arena hosts events in sports and in various levels of competition. Some examples of sports that can be seen in the topsportcentrum are judo, De Kuip is currently the home stadium of football club Feyenoord, one of the traditional top teams in the Netherlands. It has also long been one of the grounds of the Dutch national team, having hosted over 150 international matches. In 1963 De Kuip staged the final of the UEFA Cup Winners Cup, in 2000, the Feijenoord stadium hosted the final of Euro 2000, played in the Netherlands and Belgium, where France defeated Italy 2–1 in extra time. The stadium has hosted concerts since 1978, among the first performers at De Kuip were Andy Ha, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. David Bowie held his dress rehearsals and subsequently opened his 1987 Glass Spider Tour at the stadium, michael Jackson performed at the stadium 5 times,3 during the Bad World Tour and 2 during the Dangerous World Tour, performing to a combined crowd of 270,000. Fewer concerts have been held at this venue since the opening of Amsterdam ArenA in 1996, pink Floyd held a few concerts there as well
32.
UEFA Super Cup
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It takes place at the start of the domestic season, in mid-August, normally on a Tuesday. From 1972 to 1999, the UEFA Super Cup was contested between the winners of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League and the winners of the UEFA Cup Winners Cup, the current holders are Spanish club Real Madrid, who won 3–2 against Sevilla in 2016. The most successful teams in the competition are Barcelona and Italian side Milan, the European Super Cup was created in 1971 by Anton Witkamp, a reporter and later sports editor of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. The idea came to him in a time when Dutch total football was Europes finest, Witkamp was looking for something new to definitely decide which was the best team in Europe and also to further test Ajaxs legendary team, led by their star player Johan Cruyff. It was then proposed that the winner of the European Cup would face the winner of the European Cup Winners Cup, All was set for a new competition to be born. However, when Witkamp tried to get an endorsement to his competition. As a result, UEFA refused to endorse the competition until the following season and it was played in two legs and was financially supported by De Telegraaf. Ajax defeated Rangers 6–3 on aggregate and won the first European Super Cup, the 1973 final, in which Ajax defeated Milan 6–1 on aggregate, was the first Super Cup officially recognised and supported by UEFA. Although the two-legged format was kept until 1997, the Super Cup was decided in one match because of schedule issues or political problems in 1984,1986. In 1974,1981 and 1985, the Super Cup was not played at all, in the 1992–1993 season, the European Cup was renamed the UEFA Champions League and the winners of this competition would face the winners of the Cup Winners Cup in the UEFA Super Cup. In the 1994–1995 season, the European Cup Winners Cup was renamed the UEFA Cup Winners Cup, after the 1998–1999 season, the Cup Winners Cup was discontinued by UEFA. The 1999 Super Cup was the last one contested by the winners of the Cup Winners Cup, lazio, winners of the 1998–99 UEFA Cup Winners Cup, defeated Manchester United, winners of the 1998–99 UEFA Champions League, 1–0. Since then, the UEFA Super Cup was contested between the winners of the UEFA Champions League and the winners of the UEFA Cup, the 2000 Super Cup was the first one contested by the winners of the UEFA Cup. Galatasaray, winners of the 1999–2000 UEFA Cup, defeated Real Madrid, winners of the 1999–2000 UEFA Champions League, 2–1. In the 2009–10 season, the UEFA Cup was renamed the UEFA Europa League and the winners of this competition would continue to face the winners of the Champions League in the UEFA Super Cup. To date, Chelsea is the club to contest the Super Cup as holders of all three UEFA club honours, having entered as holders of the Cup Winners Cup, the Champions League. Since 1998, the Super Cup was played as a match at a neutral venue. Between 1998 and 2012, the Super Cup was played at the Stade Louis II in Monaco, since 2013 various stadiums have been used
