SV Rödinghausen

Rödinghausen sit in the Regionalliga West. A club with fewer than 4,000 seats at the Häcker-Wiehenstadion measuring itself against Verl or Arminia Bielefeld in an OWL derby is still the story worth telling before anything else.

The rise itself is the headline. Between 2009 and 2014 the team went from the Kreisliga A, the ninth tier of German football, to the Regionalliga West by winning five straight championships. That money came from Horst Finkemeier, the retired head of the Häcker kitchen firm, who paid for the ground that carries the company's name and backed the project through each promotion.

Nothing since has matched the night Bayern Munich came to Rödinghausen for the DFB-Pokal in 2018–19 and left having won 2–1. The club won the Regionalliga West that same season, then turned down promotion to the 3. Liga. Simon Engelmann has been the constant through the years since, finishing as the division's top scorer in three separate seasons.