1860 München II

Munich's Giesing district, on the city's south-east side, is home to TSV 1860's reserve side, which trains and plays on Pitch 5 of the Grünwalder Straße complex — a ground that holds 2,500 for a Bayernliga Süd Saturday.

The football section split off from the gymnastics club in 1899, and this reserve team spent most of its existence simply as the Amateure, a name it carried until 2005. It wears blue and white rather than the green and gold of the wider club, sharing the nickname The Lions with the side above it.

That side above it is the reason the team's best seasons have brought no reward. TSV 1860 München II won the Bayernliga Süd in 2024/25 and again in 2025/26, a double that would normally mean promotion. It didn't: the first team already holds the club's place in the pyramid, in the 3. Liga, and a reserve side cannot rise above it. The closest it ever came to escaping that ceiling was 2012/13, when it won the Regionalliga Bayern and lost the promotion play-off to SV Elversberg.

What the level does supply is a pipeline. Julian Weigl came through in 2013/14, Kevin Volland from 2010, Florian Neuhaus in 2016/17, Robert Glatzel in 2014/15 — all left for Bundesliga careers after starting here. Locally, the fixture that matters is against SV Heimstetten, played as the Bayernliga-Derby.

Two league titles in two years, and still no way up.