VfL Wolfsburg

VfL Wolfsburg were founded on 12 September 1945, growing out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. Most of the first squad soon left to form 1. FC Wolfsburg, and Josef Meyer put together a new team. Known as Die Wolfe, the Wolves, the club play in green and white, and Volkswagen has fully owned the professional football company since 2007. Home matches moved from the VfL-Stadion to the Volkswagen Arena, opened in December 2002.

Wolfsburg lost the 1995 DFB-Pokal final to Borussia Monchengladbach and reached the Bundesliga in 1997, beginning a 29-year top-flight run. Felix Magath led them to the 2008-09 Bundesliga title, and in 2014-15 they finished second, won the DFB-Pokal against Borussia Dortmund and then beat Bayern Munich in the DFL-Supercup. A Champions League quarter-final followed in 2015-16, but after play-off escapes in 2017 and 2018, defeat to Paderborn in the 2026 play-off ended the top-flight spell.