SV Kapfenberg

For most of a century the fiercest opponent the club faced carried its own crest. Founded on 4 September 1919 as Kapfenberger SC, the side dropped that name for Kapfenberger SV in 1947, then in June 2011 gave up "Kapfenberg" altogether, taking the field as KSV 1919. Each shift meant persuading a new generation of supporters that the shirt — red and white, worn under the nickname Falken — still belonged to them.

The Alpenstadion, known as the Franz-Fekete-Stadion until 2024, holds 10,000, about 3,000 of them seated. That happened 15 times between 1951 and 2011/12, mostly in short bursts through the 1950s and 1960s before a long absence, then four straight top-flight seasons from 2008 that followed promotion under coach Werner Gregoritsch. No Austrian championship or cup followed any of those campaigns, and European football never came.

What the club can point to sits a division or two lower: the 2007/08 Erste Liga title that took it back up, a Regionalliga Mitte crown in 2002, and, from the war years, back-to-back Styrian championships in 1942 and 1943 and Styrian Cups in 1940 and 1941. Deni Alar came through the academy before that 2011 promotion side broke up, left for Rapid Vienna and went on to play for Austria; Karl Steinmetz had done something similar decades earlier, winning Olympic silver with Austria in 1936.