AUDIO: VfL Osnabrück has been promoted (1 min)
3rd league goodbye
As of: May 3, 2026 9:37 a.m
VfL Osnabrück is back in the 2nd league – and things are running more orderly off the pitch too. About the enormous development of a club that was almost in ruins just a year ago.
It was May 9, 2025, around 9 p.m., when VfL was certain: the complicated season would come to a conciliatory end. Not a really good one, but at least a conciliatory one. Thanks to Stuttgart II’s victory over Borussia Dortmund’s U21s, it was clear on this Friday evening without any involvement of their own: the Osnabrück team, who had only been relegated from the 2nd league twelve months earlier, were saved. The free fall was stopped and the first fall into the regional league was avoided.
May 9, 2025 marked not only the end of the tremors but also a beginning. Because the avoided relegation was also the basis for the current second division promotion. In the past few weeks, Timo Schultz has reminded us again of how narrowly the purple-whites escaped the GAU fourth division less than twelve months ago. The coach, who took over in the summer, spoke of an “outstanding starting position that, I think, very few people would have expected” when looking at the table. And that applies even more to promotion.
There are difficult years behind Osnabrück
During his presentation, Schultz described the traditional Lower Saxony club as a “sleeping giant” and announced that he would “develop a lot in the next few years”. As table 14th. In the previous season, VfL was anything but a candidate for promotion. Saarbrücken, who came third last year, were perhaps considered such. Or the Fourth Energy Cottbus. Above all, 1860 Munich and Hansa Rostock were mentioned before the season.
Osnabruck? There was no mention there – not surprising after the harsh previous years. Because: The relegation from the 2nd league in May 2024 was too violent and sad – due to the broken roof on the Bremer Bridge in front of empty stands at Hamburg’s Millerntor. The “restart” in the 3rd league was a failure. But there is also too much unrest in the club with high fluctuation among management and coaches.
There was also suspicion of attempted match-fixing by ex-coach Marco Antwerpen and his assistant coach Frank Döpper, which resulted in a legal dispute. The battered stadium was an excellent symbol of a club with lots of construction sites.
Sporting leadership reorganized
As he said when he took office, Schultz was “sure that there would be a lot to do in one place or another” after a recent past marked by “a lot of rainfall.” Even back then, he also emphasized the club’s “quality of sticking together in a situation in which others are falling apart and heading downwards.”
The 48-year-old was hired by Joe Enochs. The VfL record player had recently taken up the newly created position as Director of Football. The club also reorganized its leadership in other ways. Only managing director Michael Welling stayed and set the new course of action: “Quality instead of money and data instead of just gut feeling” would be the principles in the future.
Successes on and off the pitch
Noticeably calm returned. Sporty, because VfL won games and, after a decent start, managed to improve a lot. Schultz consolidated the team, he stabilized the defense and built an offense that became increasingly dangerous as the season progressed.
And the successes also came off the pitch. The lawsuits filed by ex-coaches Antwerp and Döpper against their dismissal were dismissed by the Osnabrück labor court. And the city council gave the green light for the renovation of the stadium.
It is a development on all levels that, as Schultz rightly said, very few people would have expected. Especially not in such a short time. The promotion is an excellent symbol of a club that seems to be getting its construction sites under control. Not letting it reopen will be one of the big tasks for everyone involved, along with staying in the league.
