Potsdam

Elias Kofler wears the captain's armband for a club that spent most of its life a division or three below anyone's notice. VfL Potsdam grew out of BSG DEFA, the sports collective of the East German film studio, and was registered under its own name in the spring of 1990 as the old East German sports structures came apart. For fifteen years that inheritance meant Regionalliga football, then a step up to the 3. Liga in 2022 — respectable, unremarkable.

What changed was the arrival of Bob Hanning as coach in 2021. Hanning took Potsdam through the third division and into the 2. Max Beneke came back through that pipeline and made his academy roots count. In 2023/24, Potsdam won the 2. Bundesliga title outright and went up to the Handball-Bundesliga for the first time in the club's history.

The top flight did not linger. A single season, an eighteenth-place finish, and Potsdam were relegated straight back down for 2025/26. The Adler now return to the level they had just left, still tied to Füchse Berlin, still measured most fiercely against Oranienburger HC in the Brandenburg derby, and still playing in front of just over two thousand at the MBS Arena.