Rodertal Women

Großröhrsdorf is a small Saxon town, and its handball club spent much of the last decade proving that small towns can still climb fast and fall just as quickly. HC Rödertal formed in 2009 out of a joint side with TuS Weinböhla, and within three years the team was winning the Mitteldeutsche Oberliga without losing a single match, 22 wins from 22. Promotion followed promotion — the Oberliga Sachsen, then the 3. Liga in 2013 — quickly enough that the club set up a GmbH that same June just to run the senior side properly.

The top flight arrived almost by accident: HC Leipzig's insolvency opened a place in the 1. Bundesliga for 2017/18, and Rödertal took it. They finished bottom and went straight back down, and head coach Karsten Knöfler lost his job in January that season, replaced by Maximilian Busch. Relegation struck again in 2021/22, this time to the 3. Liga — and again the club answered immediately, winning the division and returning to the 2. Bundesliga. Since then the pattern has reversed: second place in 2023/24, second again in 2024/25. Under Maike Daniels this season they sit fourth and have reached the last 16 of the DHB-Pokal.

The Bees, as they're known locally, play in front of 581 seats at the 3-Feld-Sporthalle, most of them on a telescopic stand rather than fixed rows.

None of it means as much in Saxony as the games against HC Leipzig. The Sachsen-Derby carries an extra edge because Daniels won championships as a Leipzig player before taking Rödertal's bench, and former Rödertal player Nele Kurzke now plays for the other side — the kind of crossover that turns a regional fixture into something personal for the people on the court.