SAMSTAG 15:30

Founded: Aug 8, 1907
Club Members: 22,167
Nickname: Fuggerstädter, FCA
Coach: Jess Thorup
Captain: Jeffrey Gouweleeuw

Regionalliga Süd: 2
Bayernliga: 5

Website: www.fcaugsburg.de

Although FC Augsburg have only been around in their current guise since the '60s, the club's tangled roots date back as far as 1889 when members of a gymnastics club (TV Augsburg 1847) jumped off their pommel horses and formed a football club called 'MTV Augsburg'. As interest in the new English game gained traction in Germany, the impetus created by the footballing gymnasts of MTV led to other clubs being set up in the city and, on 8th August 1907, it got another when a group of young men led by Fritz Käferlein formed 'FC Allemannia Augsburg'. The newcomers spent their early years going through a series of mergers and name changes; and after becoming 'BC Augsburg' in 1921, they enjoyed a degree of success in local championships - winning four Kreisliga Schwaben titles between 1928 and 1933.

After the Nazi rise to power in 1933, football was restructured across Germany with the creation of the Gauliga  which funnelled clubs into 16 (later to become 18 following the Austrian Anschluß  in 1938) top-flight regional divisions and although BCA couldn't repeat their Kreisliga success, they established themselves as a fairly solid performer in the Gauliga Bayern with runners-up finishes in 1943 and 1944 their high-water mark under the Third Reich. As the second world war turned against Germany however; player shortages, travel problems and damage to grounds from Allied bombing raids meant that clubs were forced to play their matches closer to home and from 1944 onwards, BCA formed one half of a combined war team (Kriegsspielgemeinschaft ) called KSG BC/Post Augsburg.

Allied tanks on the streets of Berlin brought Hitler's 'Thousand Year Reich' to an end in 1945 and as a policy of de-Nazification was introduced across occupied Germany, all sports clubs were forced to disband. As football and dictatorship untangled themselves after the conflict, BC Augsburg duly reformed in 1946 and returned to action in the newly created Oberliga Süd where they spent most of the next decade mired in the mud of mid-table mediocrity - despite being able to call on the talents of rising star Helmut Haller. Technically gifted and a natural finisher, the stocky Bavarian had made his Augsburg debut in 1957 and, in 1962, after establishing himself as a key player for both club and country, he became the first German footballer to move to Italy when FC Bologna paid a transfer fee of DM 750,000 and offered 'Der Blonde Engel ' (the Blond Angel) DM 200,000 a year (German salaries at the time were limited to just DM 500 per month!) to make the move to Serie A. 

While Haller went on to become the first foreigner to win Italy's 'Migliore Calciatore Assoluto AIC ' (Footballer of the Year) award; back in Augsburg, no one could have foreseen the tailspin which brought back-to-back relegations and saw the club crash into the third tier Amateurliga Bayern by 1964. In an attempt to regain their football composure, BCA officials met with their counterparts at another Augsburg club - TSV 1847 Schwaben Augsburg - to discuss the possibility of a merger. A proposal to merge the two clubs had actually been discussed back in the late 1940s but quickly rejected after neither side could come to an agreement about how it would all work. On 15th July 1969 however, with BCA and TSV struggling in the amateur ranks and the beleaguered finances of both clubs adding extra urgency to the need for a solution, a union was finally agreed with the new club becoming known as 'FC Augsburg'.

Not for the first time, fans in Augsburg had to pledge their football allegiances and it took some time for the nascent club to be fully embraced by the city. With just a few hundred fans keeping the turnstiles turning each game, the club initially found it hard to keep hold of their best players and without the appeal or funds to attract quality replacements, the first team soon became a mix of overpromoted hopefuls and underpowered journeymen. Eventually though, after several years of middle-order ranking, the battle for local hearts and minds was finally won when 15,000 fans descended on the Rosenaustadion in 1973 to celebrate FCA securing the Bayernliga title and promotion to professional football for the first-time.

That summer, BCA old boy Helmut Haller returned after 11 years with FC Bologna and Juventus - rejecting a salary from the club in return for a 5% cut of the DM 44,000 transfer fee instead. With "Haller-Haller-Hallerluja " becoming Augsburg's new battle cry, the Bavarians took to life in the Regionalliga Süd straight away in a tour-de-force campaign that saw average attendances rise to over 22,000 as FCA stormed to the title. The excitement surrounding the Haller-inspired side saw the local press dub FCA as 'The Napoli of Germany' on account of their passionate following - 25,000 of whom caused a 40km traffic jam on the autobahn before a match at TSV 1860 München on 15th August 1973. Expecting a crowd of about 50,000 on the day, the authorities were totally unprepared for the 80,000 fans who were in Munich's cob-web roofed Olympiastadion at kick-off with many more locked outside the stadium. When 1860 opened the scoring in only the third minute, ticketless fans broke through the perimeter gates and climbed the fences as a tidal wave of humanity swept over the already dangerously overcrowded terraces. Thankfully, no-one was killed in the incident but 137 people were injured and apart from the near disaster, the match (which finished 1-1) is remembered for setting the world record attendance at a second division football match and being the catalyst for a rivalry that continues between the clubs today.

After missing out to Tennis Borussia Berlin in the play-offs to decide promotion to the Bundesliga that season however, the success of the 1973-74 season was consigned to the history books as FCA began flirting dangerously with relegation. A revolving-door 'policy' that saw no fewer than 7 head coaches hired and fired in a 5-year period failed to address the drop off in performances and after the departure of 18-year-old maverick Bernd Schuster - just two years before he became the star of West Germany's successful 1980 European Championship campaign - there was an air of inevitability in 1979 when FCA were relegated and Helmut Haller hung up his boots within weeks of his 40th birthday. 

Die Fuggerstädter  - a nickname derived from the city's famous Fugger family - made a quick return to Bundesliga.2 by winning the Bayernliga title in 1980 and almost completed a memorable double that season when they reached the German Amateur Championship final - only to fall to VfB Stuttgart Amateure. Life back in the second tier was brief however and a last place finish saw them relegated after just one season. They returned to Bundesliga.2 for another single-season cameo a year later but there would be no quickfire bounce-back from the third tier this time and the 1981-82 campaign turned out to be the club's last in professional football for almost quarter of a century.

FCA spent the next two decades in the amateur ranks as struggles off the pitch began mirroring those on it and by 2000, with debts of DM 1.8 million threatening to swallow the club up, failure to provide the DFB (German FA) with the proof of funds needed (€3 million) to secure a playing licence for the Regionalliga meant a forced demotion back to the Bayernliga. Salvation arrived in the form of textile entrepreneur Walter Seinsch who became FCA president that year and after clearing the club's debts, he set about turning the club's fortunes around with the avowed aim to replace the aging Rosenaustadion with a new stadium and for FCA to one day trade punches with German football's elite in the Bundesliga. 

As the storm clouds lifted, FCA began a resurgence that saw them celebrate another Bayernliga title win in 2002 and, after building up momentum with a number of top four finishes, the club finally ended their 23-year exile from Bundesliga.2 in 2006 - but only after their fans had seen them miss out on promotion the previous year after a ruinous last-gasp final day defeat against SSV Jahn Regensburg. On 26th July 2009, Walter Seinsch delivered the first of his promises when the new Impuls Arena opened and, just two years later, he made good on the second when Stephan Hain scored an 85th minute goal to secure a 2-1 win over FSV Frankfurt and promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time. 

Since then, FCA have defied expectations to establish themselves as a fixture in the German top-flight and in 2010, Dutch coach Jos Luhukay took them as far as the DFB-Pokal semi-finals before SV Werder Bremen were thrown in their path. The club's greatest achievement however came five years later under Luhukay's successor, Markus Weinzierl, when they outpaced Ruhr giants Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04 to finish the season in a remarkable fifth place and book themselves a maiden European adventure the following season. Thousands of Augsburg fans gathered in the city centre to celebrate the unlikeliest of Bundesliga success stories - many of them having braced themselves for a relegation scrap that season, not the draw for the UEFA Europa League which eventually saw FCA knocked out by Liverpool FC 1-0 on aggregate.

Run on a budget of about €20 million per season and unable to step out of the shadow cast by near-neighbours Bayern München, FC Augsburg may be a small club when compared to many in the division, but it's one that punches big and Die Fuggerstädter are out to prove that they are more than just the Bundesliga's 'other' Bavarian club.