Karlsruher Sport-Club Mühlburg-Phönix e. V., better known as Karlsruher SC, is a German association football club, based in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg that currently plays in the 2. Bundesliga, the second tier of German football. Domestically, the club was crowned German champion in 1909 and won the DFB-Pokal in 1955 and 1956. In Europe, KSC won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1996, which remains the club's last major honour.
Formed as Karlsruher Fussball Club Phönix in 1894, the modern form of the club was formed as the result of several mergers in 1952, and its early success granted KSC a spot in the inaugural Bundesliga season in 1963. KSC spent the next few decades as a yo-yo club, frequently being promoted and relegated between the top two divisions, with their best Bundesliga season coming in 1996 when KSC finished 6th in the table. Relegation followed in 1998, and the club has since spent all but two seasons between the second and third tiers. KSC maintains a fierce rivalry with VfB Stuttgart, in which old Badenese-Württembergian animosities are played out.
It was as Phönix Karlsruhe that the club joined the Gauliga Baden, one of 16 top-flight divisions created in the re-organization of German football under the Third Reich. They slipped from the first division for a single season in 1936, but returned to compete as a mediocre side over the next several years. In the 1943–44 season, Karlsruhe played with Germania Durlach as the combined wartime side named KSG (Kriegssportgemeinschaft) Phönix/Germania Karlsruhe. After World War II in 1946, Phönix re-emerged to compete in the newly formed first division Oberliga Süd, finishing 15th in their first season there. The club was relegated the following season.
other threads in the evolution of KSC were the formation of FC Mühlburg in 1905 out of 1. FV Sport Mühlburg (founded in 1890) and Viktoria Mühlburg (founded in 1892), and the merger of FC Germania (founded in 1898) and FC Weststadt (founded in 1902) to form VfB Karlsruhe in 1911. FC Mühlburg and VfB Karlsruhe would, in turn, merge to form VfB Mühlburg in 1933. The group of clubs which came together to form VfB Mühlburg were an undistinguished lot, sharing just one season of upper-league play between them. The new side, however, started to compete in the first-division Gauliga Baden immediately after the league was established in 1933.
A lower-table side through the 1930s, VfB's performance improved considerably in the following decade. As war overtook the country, the Gauliga Baden was sub-divided at various times into a number of more local city-based circuits, and the team was able to earn three second-place finishes in divisional play. The Gauliga Baden collapsed in 1944–45 after playing a significantly reduced schedule in which many teams, including Mühlburg, were unable to compete. After the war the club slipped from top-flight competition until earning promotion to the Oberliga Süd in 1947. They generally competed as a mid-table side here with the exception of a strong performance in 1951 when they narrowly missed an advance to the national championship rounds after earning a third-place result just a single point behind SpVgg Fürth.
Karlsruhe struggled in the top flight, never managing better than a 13th-place finish over five seasons before finally being demoted to the second-division Regionalliga Süd. Over the next three seasons, the team earned a first-place finish as well as two-second-place finishes there but were unable to advance in the promotion rounds. After the 1974 formation of the 2. Bundesliga, which consisted of two divisions at the time, KSC finished first in the 2. Bundesliga Süd and returned to the top flight for the 1975–76 season but were able to stay up for only two years. They next returned to the first division in 1980, where they spent four seasons before being sent down again. After a two-year absence, they were promoted back to the Bundesliga in 1987 to begin an extended stay.
As the millennium drew to a close, Karlsruhe faded. The club started the 1997–98 Bundesliga season well, with two wins and a draw in their opening three matches, but their downfall began with a 1–6 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen on Day 4. At the league winter break the club sat outside the relegation ranks, but a series of negative results pushed them down to 15th place until the second-last matchday of the season. Schäfer was fired in March 1998, but this did not keep the club from slipping to the Second Bundesliga after a 16th-place finish. The club needed an away draw against Hansa Rostock on the final day of the season to avoid relegation but lost the match 2–4 while Borussia Mönchengladbach beat VfL Wolfsburg 2–0 to overtake KSC and finish 15th on goal difference.
In their return season to the Bundesliga in 2007–08 they finished 11th, fading in the second half of the year after a strong start that saw them positioned in the qualifying places for UEFA. The club continued to perform poorly in the 2008–09 season, ultimately finishing 17th and finding themselves relegated to the 2. Bundesliga once more. The club's two most recent campaigns there ended with 10th and 15th-place finishes. Karlsruhe finished second level as 16th and faced Jahn Regensburg with relegation play-offs. These teams draw with as 1–1 at Regensburg and as 2–2 at Karlsruhe. This meant Karlsruhe's relegation to third tier after 12 years according to away goal rule.
The club successfully bounced back in 2012–13 when it won a championship in the 3. Liga and earned promotion back to the 2. Bundesliga.
2014–15 would see the club come close to a return to the Bundesliga, a third-place finish would see them play a promotion play-off against Hamburg, and after a 1–1 draw in Hamburg in the first leg, KSC were seconds away from promotion, only for Hamburg to score an equaliser in the 90th minute to force extra time, where they would score a winning away goal late in the second half to secure their Bundesliga status for another season.
In 2019, Karlsruhe won 4–1 against Preußen Münster on matchday 31, therefore returning to the 2. Bundesliga after a hiatus of two years.
Between 1991 and 2000, the team also won the North Baden Cup on four occasions, thereby qualifying for the first round of the DFB-Pokal on each occasion. Its greatest success in this competition was reaching the third round in 1996–97. DFB-Pokal Weltfussball.de. Retrieved 11 January 2015
After many restrained years, in which the targeted promotion was clearly missed, the already greatly reduced second team was discontinued for financial reasons at the end of the 2017–18 Oberliga season. However, KSC reopened its second team as a fans' team for the 2019–20 season and entered the Kreisklasse C, the lowest level of league football in Karlsruhe and North Baden.
In November 2023, Karlsruher SC announced that it would reinstate an under-23 team for the 2024–25 season, following approval by the Baden Football Association. The reinstated reserve team is organised as the highest team within the club's academy structure, providing a transition for young players between youth football and the professional game, and entered the Verbandsliga Baden for the 2024–25 campaign. In its first season after reinstatement, the team won the league title and secured promotion to the Oberliga Baden-Württemberg for the following campaign.
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from:01/07/1975 till:01/07/1977 color:bl1 shift:(0,13) text: "1. Bundesliga"
from:01/07/1977 till:01/07/1980 color:bl2 shift:(0,13) text: "2. Bundesliga"
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from:01/07/1998 till:01/07/2000 color:bl2 shift:(0,13) text: "2. BL"
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from:01/07/2001 till:01/07/2007 color:bl2 shift:(0,13) text: "2. Bundesliga"
from:01/07/2007 till:01/07/2009 color:bl1 shift:(0,13) text: "[[1. BL|Bundesliga]]"
from:01/07/2009 till:01/07/2012 color:bl2 shift:(0,13) text: "2. BL"
from:01/07/2012 till:01/07/2013 color:rs shift:(0,13) text: "3. L"
from:01/07/2013 till:01/07/2017 color:bl2 shift:(0,13) text: "2. Bundesliga"
from:01/07/2017 till:01/07/2019 color:rs shift:(0,13) text: "3. L"
from:01/07/2019 till:01/07/2026 color:bl2 shift:(0,13) text: "2. BL"
| Christian Eichner |
| Zlatan Bajramović |
| Sirus Motekallemi |
| Markus Miller |
| Florian Böckler |
| Wendelin Wäcker |
| Dr. Marcus Schweizer |
| Matteo Poppert Kevin Benz |
| Torsten Merkel Cafer Aydogan |
| Gloria Schorb |
| Thomas Laschuk Andreas Heinrich |
| Necat Aygün |
| Sebastian Freis |
| Burkhard Reich Sarah Saliba |
|
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| Season | Division | Tier | Position |
| 1999–00 | Regionalliga Süd | III | 12th↓ |
| 2000–01 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | IV | 8th |
| 2001–02 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 11th | |
| 2002–03 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 15th | |
| 2003–04 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 4th | |
| 2004–05 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 1st↑ | |
| 2005–06 | Regionalliga Süd | III | 11th |
| 2006–07 | Regionalliga Süd | 14th | |
| 2007–08 | Regionalliga Süd | 16th | |
| 2008–09 | Regionalliga Süd | IV | 16th |
| 2009–10 | Regionalliga Süd | 10th | |
| 2010–11 | Regionalliga Süd | 10th | |
| 2011–12 | Regionalliga Süd | 5th↓ | |
| 2012–13 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | V | 12th |
| 2013–14 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 5th | |
| 2014–15 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 6th | |
| 2015–16 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 4th | |
| 2016–17 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 12th | |
| 2017–18 | Oberliga Baden-Württemberg | 15th (folded) | |
| 2018–19 | defunct | ||
| 2019–20 | Kreisklasse C1 Karlsruhe | XI | |
| ↑ Promoted | ↓ Relegated |
|
|