How a town of 13,000 produced a Bundesliga team upsetting the German football giants

It is the equivalent of Haslemere having a Premier League club. Or Beaconsfield, Uttoxeter or Knutsford. Or Milford Haven, unless they targeted the Welsh league, or Berwick-upon-Tweed, were they not actually in the Scottish football pyramid. Spiesen-Elversberg is the 30th biggest town; not in Germany , but in the Saarland, one of the country’s 13 states, without even mentioning the three city states. And, if only after two games, Elversberg, its club, is level on points at the top of the Bundesliga . This weekend, they host Bayern Munich ; as compete opposites, as equals and arguably, if the table never lies, as superiors. Elversberg were in the German Regionalliga Sudwest when Bayern last won the Champions League. Now they are both in the German top flight, but Elversberg are above Bayern – with six points to the Bavarian giants’ four. Which may prompt a question: who? “So Elversberg has 13,000 people living in,” explains their sporting director Jozef Welzmuller, a Bayern fan from Munich. Munich’s population is around 1.5 million. The Allianz Arena, one of Europe’s great grounds, can host 75,000 people. The Ursapharm-Arena, home of Elversberg, would normally have a capacity bigger than the town, of just over 14,000. Elversberg are playing in the Bundesliga for the first time in their history (Reuters) And they have started with six points from six (AP) “Yeah, that’s funny,” says Welzmuller. “Right now, the stadium holds a good 9,000 people because our north stand is being rebuilt and at the end when it is finished it will hold 15,000, which is also the minimum for the Bundesliga.” For Harry Kane and co, this will be something different. For the Bundesliga, too, it will be. Germany is accustomed to seeing huge and historic clubs outside its first division – Hertha Berlin and Kaiserslautern now, Schalke, Hamburg, Koln and Werder Bremen in recent years – but never such a small club in it. The cliche is that football can put places on the map. It may be very true. “If I were to ask you three years ago to spot Elversberg on a map, you probably wouldn't know,” said Welzmuller. For the record, Spiesen-Elversberg lies near the border, closer to France than Frankfurt. “What happened in the last years was exceptional for the town and when you walk through the town or drive through the town right now you will see the SV Elversberg flags all around,” adds Welzmuller. “You will see people walking around with merch, with a hat or a jersey of Elversberg which makes me extremely proud and the players feel the same. The region is very family driven, a very calm environment and the club is part of the life of the people here. We are just trying to give back to the community what they did mostly on a volunteer basis in the last couple of years.” The north stand at Elversberg’s ground is under construction, so the stadium currently only holds 9,000 people (Reuters) But the early adopters of Elversberg are getting their reward. “It is actually very, very hard to get a ticket right now, to go to the stadium,” explains Welzmuller. “People coming four or five years ago in the fourth division and buying a season ticket are very happy now they did three years ago.” Their rise was swift, with three promotions in five years. “It sounds like a rush,” says Welzmuller, who joined in April. “But what I heard was every stage, every floor was built before the other one so we did it step by step.” They did it without a huge budget but with a fine reputation as a place to loan players. A young, and borrowed, Nick Woltemade, helped them get promotion from the third tier in 2022-23, for example. “We can’t compare ourselves to big clubs like [Borussia] Dortmund or Bayern Munich,” Welzmuller adds. But being small can have its benefits. “We are very few people to decide so we are very fast in decision-making and everyone is on the same page. We are very clear in how we want to play, how we want to be on and off the field and paired with lots of hard-working people. We have this very calm environment. When you compare to big clubs in Germany or Europe where you have this kind of negative media impact and people pointing at you with fingers, we don’t have that.” Elversberg stunned Bayern Munich in their opening Bundesliga match (Reuters) Fans from the whole of Saarland have embraced Elversberg (Reuters) They have a scouting staff of two. Their first fortnight in the Bundesliga suggests they are doing a fine job. Elversberg began by beating the 2024 champions Bayer Leverkusen 3-2. On Saturday they won 4-3 away at Borussia Monchengladbach. Next it is Bayern, the minnow against the giant. The contrast underlines why Elversberg kicked off their campaign as relegation favourites. “The worst part will be if we have lost our identity at the end of the season,” says Welzmuller. “The identity is built on three core pillars: the first is for Elversberg to be brave, the second is to be intense and to be clever, the third one.” But the identity, he hopes, does not just appeal to a small town. “You mentioned Elversberg having 13,000 people living there – that’s true but we see ourselves even more like a club from the Saarland, the whole area,” he says. “It holds about 1 million people and we are the only Bundesliga club from there so we want to get the whole Saarland crowd behind us.” The town of 13,000 have much of the Bundesliga below them, if only for now, as the bus drivers for the Bundesliga’s ever-presents will require directions to a new venue, in small-town Germany.