F.C. Hansa Rostock

F.C. Hansa Rostock
Full name F.C. Hansa Rostock e.V.
Nickname(s) Hansa, Hanseaten, Kogge,
Hansa-Kogge, Ostseestädter
Founded December 28, 1965
Ground DKB-Arena, Rostock
(Capacity: 29,000)
Chairman Flag of Germany Dirk Grabow
Manager Dieter Eilts
League 2. Bundesliga
2007/08 Bundesliga, 17th (Relegated)
Team colours Team colours Team colours
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F.C. Hansa Rostock is a German football club based in the city of Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. They have emerged as one of the most successful clubs from the former East Germany and made several appearances in the 1. Bundesliga.

Contents

History

The club was established on 1 November 1954 as the polysportive Sportclub Empor Rostock. The football squad, however, couldn't be recruited from local Betriebssportgemeinschaften like the squad of the handball section, so a transfer of BSG Empor Lauter's squad from Lauter to Rostock was considered. The area around Lauter, near the Czech border, was well-represented in East German football by competitive sides including Wismut Aue, Fortschritt Meerane and Motor Zwickau, so politician Karl Mewis ordered the re-assignment of the footballers of Empor Lauter, over the futile protests of the team's local supporters, to Rostock. This was not an uncommon occurrence in East German football, as clubs were regularly re-named, re-structured, dismantled, or shuffled from city to city at the direction of well-placed communist officials.

The wholesale transfer of the Lauterers to Rostock part way through the 1954-55 season led to the disappearance of that association from play. A new club was formed in 1956 as BSG Motor Lauter and on 1 August 1990 it took up the tradition of the original side to play as Lauterer Sportverein Viktoria 1913.

Play in Rostock

Newly formed SC Empor Rostock took the place of the former Lauter-based club in first division play in November 1954. They finished second the next season, but in 1956 plunged to 14th place and were relegated. They quickly bounced back, rejoining the DDR-Oberliga in 1958, before going on to become a very competitive side with a series of three vice-championships to their credit from 1962-1964, as well as several appearances in the final of the FDGB Pokal. The re-organization of East German sports in 1965 led to the association's football department becoming independent as Fußball Club Hansa Rostock, which was designated as one of the country's 11 football clubs, "focus clubs" intended to groom talent for the development of a strong East German national side. The new club's name acknowledged Rostock's history as one of the major trading centres of northern Europe's Hanseatic League.

By the 70s the club was consistently finishing in the lower half of the league table and was relegated to the second division DDR-Liga for a single season on three different occasions late in the decade. They returned to form in the 80s and as the football leagues of the two Germanys were merged in 1991 after the re-unification of the country, Rostock won its first national championship in the last ever season of East German football, played out in the transitional NOFV Oberliga Nordost. They would also capture the last ever East German Cup with a 1:0 win over FC Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt.

United Germany and the Bundesliga

The club's timely success earned them a place in the Bundesliga alongside Dynamo Dresden when the league was briefly expanded from 18 to 20 teams for the 1991-92 season to accommodate two former East German teams. Hansa was unable to stay up and was relegated after falling just a single point shy of the club ahead of them. Three seasons of tempering in the 2. Bundesliga would return the club to the top flight for the 1995-96 season. In ten years spent in the Bundesliga the team's best results were a pair of sixth place finishes. In spite of frequent placings in the bottom half of the league table, they would persist as the only former East German side able to consistently challenge the well-heeled clubs of the west.

Rostock had a very poor first half in the 2004-05 season, earning only a single win and five draws in 17 matches. They were unable to recover and at season's end were relegated, leaving the former DDR without a club in the top flight for the first time since re-unification. Like other East German teams they were the victims of a harsh economic reality as the wealthier, well-established western sides bought up the most talented eastern footballers as their clubs struggled to survive financially: Rostock's Stefan Beinlich, Oliver Neuville and Victor Agali were just three players sent west for cash. After two years in the 2. Bundesliga the club returned to the top flight for the 2007-08 season, but was soon relegated back to the 2. Bundesliga for the 2008-2009 season.

Recent seasons

Year Division Position
1999-2000 Bundesliga (I) 15th
2000-01 Bundesliga 12th
2001-02 Bundesliga 14th
2002-03 Bundesliga 13th
2003-04 Bundesliga 9th
2004-05 Bundesliga 17th (relegated)
2005-06 2. Bundesliga (II) 10th
2006-07 2. Bundesliga 2nd (promoted)
2007-08 Bundesliga (I) 17th (relegated)
2008-09 2. Bundesliga (II)

Honours

Fans

Stadium

The original Ostseestadion was built in 1954, with the participation of several hundred citizens of Rostock who helped for free. The first international match in the Ostseestadion of East Germany was on September 26, 1956. In 2001, the stadium was refurbished and modified to accommodate 30,000 spectators. On July 2, 2007 the naming rights were sold to Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB), hence the new official name is "DKB-Arena".

Trivia

Current squad

For recent transfers, see List of German football transfers summer 2008.

No. Position Player
1 Flag of Germany GK Stefan Wächter
2 Flag of Germany MF Dexter Langen
3 Flag of the United States DF Heath Pearce
4 Flag of Brazil DF Orestes Junior Alves
5 Flag of Germany DF Benjamin Lense
6 Flag of Denmark MF Martin Retov (captain)
7 Flag of France FW Régis Dorn
8 Flag of Montenegro MF Đorđije Ćetković
9 Flag of Germany FW Enrico Kern
10 Flag of Turkey MF Zafer Yelen
11 Flag of Germany FW Robert Lechleiter
13 Flag of Germany MF Mario Fillinger
15 Flag of Germany DF Christian Rahn
16 Flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo DF Assani Lukimya-Mulongoti
17 Flag of Germany MF Tobias Rathgeb
No. Position Player
18 Flag of Germany DF Bastian Oczipka (on loan from Bayer 04 Leverkusen)
19 Flag of Germany DF Tom Buschke
20 Flag of Germany FW Kevin Schindler (on loan from SV Werder Bremen)
21 Flag of Germany GK Jörg Hahnel
22 Flag of Germany MF Sebastian Albert
23 Flag of Brazil DF Diego Morais Pacheco
24 Flag of Germany GK Kenneth Kronholm
25 Flag of Germany MF Simon Tüting
26 Flag of Germany FW Addy-Waku Menga
27 Flag of Germany MF Fin Bartels
28 Flag of Brazil DF Gledson
29 Flag of Germany MF Tobias Jänicke
31 Flag of Germany MF Kai Bülow
33 Flag of Germany FW Guido Kocer

Staff

Managment

Chairman

Director of Sport

Supervisory Board

Sports

Head Coach

Assistant Coach

Goalkeeper Coach

Team Manager

Scouting

Scouts

Physiotherapeut

Famous former players

Hansa Rostock sent 21 players to the East German (DDR) national side, as well as a handful to the national team of a united Germany.

A number of Rostock's best players have been sold to other clubs as they struggle to adjust to rough and tumble capitalist western football.

  • Flag of Germany Steffen Baumgart
  • Flag of Germany Stefan Beinlich, 5-0 for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Arthur Bialas
  • Flag of Germany Olaf Bodden
  • Flag of Germany Thomas Doll, 28-7 for the GDR , 18-7 for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Carsten Jancker, 33-10 for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Gerd Kische, 63 caps for the GDR
  • Flag of Germany Toni Kroos, played in Hansa's youth system
  • Flag of Germany Axel Kruse
  • Flag of Germany Timo Lange
  • Flag of Germany Martin Max, 1 cap for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Ronald Maul, 2 caps for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Oliver Neuville, 65-9 for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Oswald Pfau
  • Flag of Germany Marko Rehmer, 35-4 for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Mathias Schober
  • Flag of Germany Juri Schlünz
  • Flag of Germany Dieter Schneider
  • Flag of Germany René Schneider, 1 cap for Germany
  • Flag of Germany Joachim Streich, a record 98-53 for the GDR
  • Flag of Germany Andreas Zachuber
  • Flag of Germany Kurt Zapf
  • Flag of Austria Gerd Wimmer, 5-0 for Austria
  • Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sergej Barbarez, 50-17 for Bosnia and Herzegovina|Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • Flag of Croatia Igor Pamić, 5-1 for Croatia
  • Flag of Denmark Thomas Rasmussen, 2 caps for Denmark
  • Flag of Egypt Yasser Radwan
  • Flag of Egypt Mohamed Emara
  • Flag of Namibia Razundara Tjikuzu
  • Flag of Nigeria Victor Agali, played 12 caps and scored 4 goals for Nigeria
  • Flag of Nigeria Jonathan Akpoborie, played 14 caps for Nigeria
  • Flag of Poland Slawomir Chalaskiewicz, 2-0 for Poland
  • Flag of Poland Slawomir Majak
  • Flag of Sweden Marcus Allbäck, 66-29 for Sweden
  • Flag of Sweden Magnus Arvidsson, 2 caps for Sweden
  • Flag of Sweden Andreas Jakobsson, 37 caps for Sweden
  • Flag of Sweden Marcus Lantz, 5 caps for Sweden
  • Flag of Sweden Joakim Persson, 3 caps for Sweden
  • Flag of Sweden Rade Prica, 12-2 caps for Sweden
  • Flag of Sweden Peter Wibrån, 10-0 for Sweden
  • Flag of Togo Bachirou Salou

Former Coaches

Flag of Germany Frank Pagelsdorf

External links