HBW Balingen-Weilstetten

Mischa Locher came up through the academy and was pushed into the first-team squad for the 2026 season, which tells most of the story of how HBW Balingen-Weilstetten keeps going: a club with no wealthy backer, promoted and relegated in turns. It was assembled in 2002, when the handball sections of TSG Balingen and TV Weilstetten merged, and won the regional title in that first season alone, going straight up to the 2. Bundesliga.

Since then the club has bounced between the top flight and the second tier four times, going up in 2006, 2019, 2023 and 2026, and coming back down in 2017 and again in 2024. In the 2014/15 season it survived on 16th place only because Hamburg's licence was withdrawn. The nickname "Die Gallier" — the Gauls, after the Asterix comics — was pinned on the team in 2009, when they beat THW Kiel.

The closest thing to a landmark run came in 2025, when Balingen went further in the DHB-Pokal than any second-division side had managed before, reaching the Final Four and taking bronze.