Fortuna Köln

Three clubs from Cologne's Südstadt district — SV Victoria 1911, Bayenthaler SV and Sparkassen-Verein 1927 Köln — merged into one side in February 1948, and Fortuna Köln has carried the red and white of that union ever since. Home is the Südstadion, with room for 11,748.

Only once has Fortuna played in the Bundesliga itself: the 1973/74 season, which ended with the team relegated from 17th place. The second tier became home instead, and for 26 consecutive seasons the club never dropped out of it, a run of stability the rest of German football rarely matched. In 1983 Fortuna reached the DFB-Pokal final, the only one in the competition's history between two Cologne clubs, and lost it 0-1 to 1. FC Köln. Three years later Borussia Dortmund beat them in a promotion play-off that finished 0-8 on aggregate, the closest Fortuna came back to the top flight.

The club's finances did not survive the death of Jean Löring, its president for decades. By January 2005 the first team had been withdrawn from competition entirely and restarted from the fifth division; players posed nude for a charity calendar to help raise the money needed to keep Fortuna alive. The rebuild took years rather than one campaign: from a regional title in 2008 to the Regionalliga West championship in 2014, which sent them up to the 3. Liga past Bayern Munich II in a play-off. The 2025/26 season brought a repeat of that title and a return to the 3. Liga.

Across the city it is 1. FC Köln that Fortuna measure themselves against on derby day, a rivalry sharpened by that 1983 final. But at the Südstadion, it is still Löring — the man whose death very nearly finished the club — who is spoken of before anyone who has worn the shirt.