SV Elversberg rounds off historic season with championship title
With an away victory in Ingolstadt on Saturday (27 May 2023), SV Elversberg won their final game of the 3. Liga season. This 2:1 win also secured the 3. Liga championship for the Saarland team. After last week’s sensational breakthrough when promotion to the 2. Liga already became mathematically certain before the final match day, the team rounded off a historic season and the greatest success in the club’s history with the championship title.
In a season of superlatives and records, the team under coach Horst Steffen and sports director Nils-Ole Book are deserving championship winners. After being promoted from the Regionalliga a year ago and a kick-start to the season with a 5:1 win over Rot-Weiss Essen (equalling the highest opener win of any team in the 3. Liga’s history), then a 4:3 victory over Bayer Leverkusen in the DFB Cup, there seemed to be great things on the horizon. What followed was an intoxicating 3. Liga season with 30 match days spent at the top of the table, fantastic offensive football, and spectacular SVE games.
Elv’s sporting success has been impressive and is the result of exceptional, ongoing work in squad planning and composition in recent years. Paired with their philosophy and style of play as well as the coach’s approach, an experienced, united team has emerged that has always shown great enthusiasm in their playing and regularly delighted spectators with spectacular offensive football. A team that scored 80 goals in a season and conceded just 40, boasting Nick Woltemade who was named ‘2022/23 Player of the Season’ by league fans and Horst Steffen who was selected 3. Liga ‘Coach of the Year’ by his fellow coaches, must have done something right to achieve such a genuine success story.
This ease and the high fun factor that comes with SV Elversberg’s appearances has created huge euphoria and enthusiasm in the region, achieving recognition across the whole of the German football spectrum. The average number of spectators at home games in the URSAPHARM Arena on Kaiserlinde has now risen to 5000 stadium visitors, in the district of Spiesen-Elversberg with its just 13,000 inhabitants. Promotion to the 2. Liga means that SVE and football fans in Saarland can look forward to visits from such notable clubs as Hertha BSC Berlin, Schalke 04, and depending on the outcome of the relegation fight, even HSV or VfB Stuttgart. Away trips to Betzenberg for 1. FC Kaiserslautern or Millerntor for the long-established FC St. Pauli will now also form part of any die-hard SVE fan’s holiday and weekend planning.
Work to refurbish the club’s home URSAPHARM Arena and bring it up the the standard required for the 2. Liga by the DFL has just begun. The club is working full steam ahead to make sure that it is ideally positioned for the upcoming ‘project 2 Bundesliga’.
We are proud of this fantastic development for SV Elversberg and look forward to their next big challenge in the 2. Liga.