FC 08 Homburg

Miroslav Klose wore Homburg's green and white for a single season, 1998–99. Within a year of his departure the club that had briefly carried him could barely carry itself: a financial crisis in 1999 forced relegation out of the professional game and down into the Oberliga.

That collapse followed the best years the club had known. In 1986 Homburg won the 2. Bundesliga and spent three seasons in the top flight, from 1986 to 1990. The following decade, back in the second tier, they still had enough about them to knock out Bayern Munich in the 1991–92 DFB-Pokal, winning 4–2 in a result still recalled around Homburg long after both clubs had gone their separate ways in the league table.

The club traces back to 1908, though it did not settle on its current name until 1958, having been folded and refounded and renamed more than once along the way. What has stayed constant is the Saarland rivalry: derbies against 1. FC Saarbrücken and against Pirmasens across the border still carry more weight locally than most of what the league table says about either side. Regionally, Homburg have kept winning long after leaving the professional ranks — Oberliga Südwest titles in 2010 and 2012, and Saarland Cup wins stretching from the 1980s to 2025.

What none of that regional form has produced is a way back. Since the relegation of 1990, Homburg have not found a route through the leagues to Bundesliga football again.