After narrowly lacking out on Bundesliga promotion following a play-off ultimate defeat to 1. FC Heidenheim in 2024/25, SV Elversberg made historical past final season by ending second in the 2. Bundesliga and securing a spot in the German prime flight for the first time ever.
It was one other outstanding step ahead for the small membership from Spiesen-Elversberg, a municipality of round 13,000 folks in Saarland, who’ve risen from the Regionalliga Südwest to the Bundesliga in simply 5 years.
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Elversberg have loved outstanding success with a high-intensity, dominant and attacking model of soccer. And regardless of going from going through the likes of 1. FC Magdeburg and Eintracht Braunschweig to Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, there’s little motive to count on their strategy to change.
“We won’t do anything differently. The identity stays the same,” SV Elversberg technical director Josef Welzmüller instructed Bulinews.com and different chosen media retailers throughout a media roundtable on Friday.
“Of course, we’re making small adjustments as we adapt from the 2. Bundesliga to the Bundesliga, but the core idea and philosophy stays the same,” he added.
“We have a lot of respect for the Bundesliga, but we don’t fear anybody. That’s very important for us.”
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36-year-old Welzmüller has been working for the membership since April, when he was put in in a newly-created position as technical director. His key duties embody overseeing the membership’s enjoying philosophy, methodology and participant growth.
Following the membership’s promotion, Welzmüller and the remainder of Elversberg’s administration confronted a elementary resolution: ought to they undertake a extra defensive strategy in an try to adapt to the calls for of the Bundesliga, or ought to they follow the philosophy that had taken them there?
They selected the latter.
“We sat down together and said: ‘Hey, we made the playing style part of our identity and this is bigger than everything. We chose players and a coach that fit our playing style, so we can’t change anything. We need to play the Elversberg way.’ I’m very glad we decided to do that,” Welzmüller defined.
Photo: SV Elversberg
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A confirmed monitor file for younger gamers
A key a part of Elversberg’s id is their dedication to recruiting younger, gifted gamers and offering them with the belief and setting they want to take the subsequent step in their growth.
Hoffenheim’s Fisnik Asllani, PSV’s Paul Wanner and Newcastle United and Germany ahead Nick Woltemade are amongst the gamers who’ve benefited from mortgage spells at the membership lately.
“From Fisnik Asllani to Paul Wanner and Nick Woltemade, we can tell the story that players came in, got their time on the pitch, the responsibility from the coach and individual player development, which turned them into better players,” Welzmüller defined.
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“Even the agents know that this helps and works and ask if they can place players at Elversberg. That history did a lot of good for us. Ole Book [the former Elversberg sporting director, now working for Borussia Dortmund] and all the other guys that were here before me did a great job in that regard, and we can use that.
“It’s even simpler now as a result of we are able to provide them the probability to play in the Bundesliga. It was a bit harder in the 2. Bundesliga, but it surely’s fairly straightforward this yr. We cannot provide excessive wages, however we are able to provide an excellent growth pathway for the gamers.”
Elversberg have remained true to that philosophy in their recruitment this summer, bringing in young players such as Cole Campbell from Dortmund (€6m) and Maurice Krattenmacher from Bayern Munich (€2m), while also signing Francis Onyeka from Bayer Leverkusen and Noah Darvich from Stuttgart on loan (€750,000 each).
“We merely cannot afford confirmed Bundesliga gamers. Or possibly we might afford one or two, however then we might break our entire wage construction. Our intention was at all times, if you return the years, to usher in prime gifted gamers and develop them. That’s our core enterprise, and we’ve got a training workers that’s insanely good at that. We have a really calm setting right here in Elversberg, which additionally helps to try this. So naturally, our focus was on these sort of younger prime skills. And to be trustworthy, we might safe all of them we actually needed, and we’re actually proud to have them in. Cole [Campbell] is an excellent instance, however we even have Noah Darvich, Maurice Krattenmacher and Francis Onyeka. We’re very positive we’ll have lots of enjoyable with these gamers this yr.”
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Asked specifically about Campbell, Welzmüller revealed just how much faith he has in the 20-year-old US international.
“He’s our file signing, which most likely exhibits how a lot we imagine in Cole. He’s a unbelievable participant. He’s very quick and robust with the ball and in one-on-one conditions. I’ve spent a while with him now, and he is an excellent child with an excellent character. We simply need him to go into one-on-one conditions and remedy areas for us. We are very, very positive that he could have a breakout season,” he said.
“Our greatest loss can be to lose our id”
Time will tell whether Elversberg’s brave philosophy will ultimately be enough to secure another season in the Bundesliga.
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But regardless of the outcome, the club’s decision-makers want to be able to look themselves in the mirror at the end of the season and know they stayed true to the football that brought the club this far.
“We want to look brief time period at staying in the league and take a look at to pull all the levers we are able to. But the most essential factor is to maintain our id,” Welzmüller said.
“I can let you know subsequent May if it labored our or not, however our greatest loss can be to lose our id. We need to safe and maintain that as a result of that is the most essential factor for us,” he concluded.
Elversberg will start their historic Bundesliga marketing campaign at residence in opposition to Bayer Leverkusen at the Waldstadion an der Kaiserlinde on Saturday, with kick-off scheduled for 15:30 CEST.