1899 Hoffenheim

Badenpokal came four years running, 2002 to 2005, back when Hoffenheim were still fighting up from Baden-Württemberg's regional football rather than sitting in it. The Oberliga title in 2000/01 came in the same stretch, a small-club honour that mattered because of what followed it: two second-place finishes, in the Regionalliga Süd in 2006/07 and the 2. Bundesliga a year later, each one a promotion in disguise.

The club itself is younger than its name suggests. TSG 1899 Hoffenheim formed in 1945, a merger of the gymnastics club Turnverein Hoffenheim, founded on 1 July 1899, and a football club that had split off from it in 1921. The number in the name belongs to the gymnasts, not the footballers.

None of the climbing up the divisions happens without Dietmar Hopp. A youth product of the club and a co-founder of SAP, he began funding Hoffenheim around 2000 and underwrote a rise that took them from the eighth tier of German football to the Bundesliga by 2008, one of the more unusual financed ascents the league has seen.

Andrej Kramarić has outlasted that era's romance and become its record scorer anyway, past 140 goals since joining in 2016. Roberto Firmino passed through earlier, top scorer and top assistant in 2013/14 before Liverpool came calling. Oliver Baumann has simply stayed, closing in on 390 appearances between the posts.

Home games are played at what is now the PreZero Arena, 30,150 for Bundesliga fixtures, previously known as the Rhein-Neckar-Arena. The nearest rivalry runs against SC Freiburg, the Badisches Derby, most recently settled in Hoffenheim's favour in November 2025.