1. Fußball-Club Nürnberg Verein für Leibesübungen e. V., often called 1. FC Nürnberg (, ), is a German sports club based in Nuremberg, Bavaria. It is best known for its men's football team, who currently compete in the 2. Bundesliga. Founded in 1900, the club initially competed in the Southern German championship, winning their first title in 1916. Their first German championship was won in 1920. Before the inauguration of the Bundesliga in 1963, 1. FCN won a further 11 regional championships, including the Oberliga Süd formed in 1945, and were German champions another seven times. The club has won the Bundesliga once and the DFB-Pokal four times.
Since 1963, the club has played their home games at the Max-Morlock-Stadion in Nuremberg. Today's club has sections for boxing, handball, hockey (inline skater hockey and ice hockey), rollerblading and ice skating, swimming, skiing, and tennis.
Nürnberg hold the joint record for promotions from the various second divisions to the Bundesliga at 8 with Arminia Bielefeld. Owing to its status as a founding member of the Bundesliga while Bielefeld was not, however, Nürnberg's consequent nine relegations from the top tier are a record by itself.
History Rise of "Der Club"
1. FC Nürnberg was founded on 4 May 1900 by a group of 18 young men who had gathered at local pub Burenhütte to assemble a side committed to playing football rather than rugby, one of the other new "English" games becoming popular at the time. By 1909, the team was playing well enough to win the South German championship. After World War I, Nürnberg would gradually turn their success into the dominance of the country's football. In the period from July 1918 to February 1922, the team would go unbeaten in 104 official matches. As early as 1919, they came to be referred to simply as "Der Club" in recognition of their skill and of their style on and off the field and would go on to become one of the nation's most widely recognized and popular teams.
Nürnberg faced SpVgg Fürth in the first national championship held after the end of World War I, beating the defending champions 2–0. That would be the first of five titles Der Club would win over the course of eight years. In each of those victories, they would shutout their opponents.
The 1922 final was contested by Nürnberg and Hamburger SV but never reached a conclusion on the pitch. The match was called on account of darkness after three hours and ten minutes of play, drawn at 2–2. The re-match also went into extra time, and in an era that did not allow for substitutions, that game was called at 1–1 when Nürnberg was reduced to just seven players and the referee ruled incorrectly the club could not continue. The German Football Association (DFB) awarded the win to Hamburger SV under the condition that they renounce the title in the name of "good sportsmanship", and ultimately the Viktoria trophy was not officially awarded that year.
After the glory years 1. FCN's dominance was already beginning to fade when they captured their final trophy of the era in 1927 as the game began to evolve into a more quickly paced contest which did not suit their slower, more deliberate approach. In 1934, they lost in the final to Schalke 04, a club that would go on to become the strongest side in the era of football in Nazi Germany. Nürnberg won national titles just before and after World War II in 1936 and 1948 – in the first post-war national final – and would also take the Tschammerpokal, the forerunner of today's DFB-Pokal, in 1935 and 1939.
Into the modern era
The post-war period began with the club being integrated into the Oberliga Süd, one of the five top divisions in West-Germany at the time. Nürnberg won this league six times until 1963, winning the national championship in 1948. In 1961, 1. FCN captured their eighth national title and appeared in a losing effort in the following year's final. Some consolation was to be had in the team capturing its second DFB-Pokal in 1962. The club's strong play made it an obvious choice to be amongst the 16 teams selected to participate in the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional football league formed in 1963. Der Club played as a mid-table side through the league's early years until putting on a dominating performance in 1968, in which it sat atop the league table from the fifth week of play on to the end of the season en route to its first Bundesliga title. It went on to become the first reigning champions to be relegated from the Bundesliga. This was a result of Max Merkel's decision to remove his championship-winning team of veterans – believing that they were too old – in favour of a dozen newcomers.
It would take the club nine years to recover and return from the second tier (first the Regionalliga Süd, then the 2. Bundesliga Süd), that included several failed efforts in the promotion rounds. 1. FCN returned to the Bundesliga for a year in 1978, but finish 17th and were relegated again. The club immediately played its way back to the top flight, but since then its Bundesliga performances have typically ended in the lower positions in the league table with occasional relegations. The side's best result in recent decades was a fifth-place finish in 1988.
The early 1980s saw the development of a supporter friendship between fans of Nürnberg and those of former rivals Schalke 04. Supporters have travelled to each other's away matches, and meetings between the two clubs are typically described as amicable.Schalke v Nuremberg: A tale of two German clubs and an unlikely friendship, Harry De Cosemo, BBC Sport, 24 January 2025
In the mid-1990s, Nürnberg had financial problems, including the conviction of their club treasurer Ingo Böbel for fraud and misallocating club finances. This led to their being penalized six points in the 1995–96 season while playing in the 2. Bundesliga. The club was relegated to the third division as a consequence. Gradual improvements were made in the subsequent seasons.
In 1999, however, 1. FCN suffered what was arguably the worst end-of-season collapse in Bundesliga history. Going into the last game of the campaign, the club sat in 12th place, three points and five goals ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt in 16th place. Nürnberg's last home game against SC Freiburg, which was also facing relegation while Frankfurt was up against 1. FC Kaiserslautern, the previous season's champions who in a fight for a UEFA Champions League spot. FCN had already begun sending renewal letters to current season ticket holders which included statements about successfully avoiding relegation. Every other team in the equation won their matches, including Frankfurt who routed Kaiserslautern 5–1 with three late goals, whereas Nürnberg lost 2–1, with Frank Baumann missing a chance to score in the last minute, and suffered a shock relegation. 1. FCN was not relegated because they had fewer points than Frankfurt, nor because of a lower goal differential, but on the third tie-breaker – fewer goals scored.
21st century 1. FCN rebounded and returned to the Bundesliga, but still found itself battling with relegation in most years. However, relegation was avoided comfortably in the 2005–06 season, finishing eighth in the Bundesliga. After several years of consolidation, Nürnberg seemed to be back as a strong force in German football. Manager Martin Bader's work (such as the signing of former Ajax captain and Czech international Tomáš Galásek), as well as head coach Hans Meyer's tactical awareness, helped Nürnberg to its most successful finish in almost 40 years. In May 2007, qualification for the UEFA Cup was assured, and after eliminating Eintracht Frankfurt in the semi-final, the Club won the DFB-Pokal final against VfB Stuttgart 3–2 after extra time, winning the trophy 45 years after its last victory.
In the first round of 2007–08 the team's form in the Bundesliga was poor, but due to finishing second in their UEFA Cup group (ahead of eventual champion Zenit Saint Petersburg), head coach Hans Meyer was allowed to restructure the team, for example by buying Czech international striker Jan Koller from Monaco. Little improvement was seen, and Meyer was replaced by Thomas von Heesen after two fixtures in the second half of the season. Von Heesen did not do much better, and 1. FCN was relegated in 16th place after losing 2–0 at home to Schalke 04 on the final matchday. After a slow start, Michael Oenning was able to guide Nürnberg to a third-place finish and a 5–0 aggregate win over Energie Cottbus in the play-off to rejoin the Bundesliga. The club was demoted again, however, after the 2013–14 season, finishing 17th with another final matchday loss to Schalke 04. The club finished third in the 2015–16 season and qualified for the promotion play-off, but lost on aggregate to Eintracht Frankfurt to remain in the 2. Bundesliga for 2016–17. The club went on to finish 2nd in 2017–2018 season, securing a promotion spot into the Bundesliga with an away win against SV Sandhausen. However, they finished bottom of the table the next season and were relegated once more.
In the 2019–20 2. Bundesliga season, they finished in 16th place and faced a relegation play-off against 3. Liga side and fellow Bavarians Ingolstadt. The tie ended 3–3 on aggregate with Nürnberg winning on away goals; the goal which retained their second-tier status was scored in the sixth minute of injury time in the second leg, thereby keeping them up at the last moment.
In June 2025, Nürnberg became the first German club to enter a partnership with Jamestown Analytics, using its data modelling alongside the club's existing scouting operation. The system contributed to the identification of midfielder Adam Markhiev, signed from Aris Limassol in September 2025 as a replacement for Caspar Jander; sporting director Joti Chatzialexiou said Jamestown's data had played a role in assessing a player whose statistical profile closely resembled Jander's. In February 2026, Chatzialexiou said the partnership had widened Nürnberg's ability to assess players in markets where it had no scouts, while describing the system as still being refined for the German market.
Rivals
SpVgg Greuther Fürth is 1. FCN's longest standing local rival. The rivalry dates back to the early days of German football when, at times, those two clubs dominated the national championship. The clubs have played 258 matches against one another, the most in German professional football. In 1921, the Germany national team consisted only of players from Nürnberg and Fürth for a match against the Netherlands in Amsterdam. The players traveled in the same train, but with the Nürnberg players in a carriage at the front of the train and those from Fürth in a carriage at the rear, while team manager Georg B. Blaschke sat in the middle. A Fürth player scored the first goal of the match but was only congratulated by Fürth players. Allegedly, Hans Sutor, a former Fürth player, was forced to leave the team when he married a woman from Nuremberg. He was later signed by 1. FC Nürnberg and was in the team that eventually won three national championships. Both clubs played together in the Bundesliga in 2012–13.
Games against Bayern Munich are often considered major matches of the season, because the two clubs are among the most successful in Bavaria and Germany overall.
Reserve team
The 1. FC Nürnberg II (or 1. FC Nürnberg Amateure) qualified for the Regionalliga Süd on the strength of a third place in the Bayernliga (IV) in 2007–08. The team had been playing in the Bayernlig since 1998, finishing runners-up three times in those years. When not playing in the Bayernlig, the team used to belong to the Landesliga Bayern-Mitte. Nowadays, it plays in tier four Regionalliga Bayern.
League results
Recent seasons