Hertha Berlin

Pál Dárdai played 532 matches for Hertha BSC and then coached the club across two spells between 2005 and 2023.

The club took its name from a steamship. One of the founders had travelled on the Hertha with his father, and when a group of young men, the Lindner and Lorenz brothers among them, set up Berliner Fußball Club Hertha 1892 on 25 July 1892, the boat supplied the word.

The "BSC" arrived by merger in August 1923, when Berliner Sport-Club joined the name and the identity. BSC walked away in 1930; Hertha kept the initials and kept the ground.

The cup came close twice in the late 1970s and slipped away both times by a single goal — a replay lost to 1. FC Köln in 1977, then Fortuna Düsseldorf two years later. Hans Weiner played in both finals across a career of 362 matches.

Home from 1923 to 1963 was the Stadion am Gesundbrunnen, which supporters called Die Plumpe. Since then it has been the Olympiastadion, and the derby that fills it now is with 1. FC Union Berlin, from the other side of a city that spent decades divided.