One of the main challenges in creating a CM 89/90 update, is the fact that Europe looked very different in 1989 as it did in 2001. To put it in numeric terms, 32 teams entered qualification for Italia ’90 (plus Italy who qualified as hosts), compared with 51 in 2002. The CM 89/90 update gets around this by assigning nationalities to players and clubs based on what they would have been twelve years later.
As a fan of German football, I want Germany to be one of the playable leagues, but of all the changes countries, this is the most complex of all – two league systems have to be merged (not to mention the fact that the Regionalliga didn’t exist then). It is the only country where teams have fewer European places than they did in 1989/90.
I decided to give the DDR roughly 1/4 representation in the “unified” league, which means four teams in the Bundesliga. There are four more in the 2. Liga, plus the four pushed down from the Bundesliga, which pushes ten teams into the Regionalliga (there were 20 in the 2. Liga in 89/90).
The Regionalliga is made up of these ten teams, the remaining six from the DDR-Oberliga. The 20 remaining spaces are filled with strong Oberliga clubs – those recently relegated, or soon to be promoted, plus a few teams from the East German second tier. This is governed, by some extent, by where I could find squad details, and as a result the northern region (in current Regionalliga terms) loses out a bit.
Summary of German leagues in CM 89/90
Bundesliga
- 1. FC Dynamo Dresden (from DDR-Oberliga)
- 1. FC Kaiserslautern
- 1. FC Köln
- 1. FC Nürnberg
- Bayer Leverkusen
- Bayer Uerdingen
- Borussia Mönchengladbach
- Borussia Dortmund
- Chemnitzer FC (DDR)
- Eintracht Frankfurt
- FC Bayern Munich
- Dynamo Berlin (DDR)
- Hansa Rostock (DDR)
- Fortuna Düsseldorf
- Hamburg
- Karlsruher SC
- Werder Bremen
- VfB Stuttgart
2. Bundesliga
- Magdeburg (DDR)
- Saarbrücken
- BW Berlin
- FC Homburg (from Bundesliga)
- Carl Zeiss Jena (DDR)
- Erzgebirge Aue (DDR)
- Schalke 04
- FC St. Pauli (BL)
- Hannover 96
- Hertha BSC
- MSV Duisburg
- Rot-Weiß Essen
- SG Wattenscheid
- Stuttgarter Kickers
- SV Waldhof Mannheim (BL)
- Eintracht Braunschweig
- VfB Leipzig (DDR)
- VfL Bochum (BL)
Regionalliga Nord
- Union Berlin (from DDR-Liga)
- Bischofswerdaer FV (from DDR-Oberliga)
- BSV Brandenburg (DDR-O)
- Chemie Böhlen (DDR-L)
- Energie Cottbus (DDR-O)
- Rot-Weiß Erfurt (DDR-O)
- Sachsen Leipzig (DDR-L)
- Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt (DDR-O)
- FSV Zwickau (DDR-L)
- Hallescher FC (DDR-O)
- Frankfurter FC Viktoria (DDR-L)
- Hamburger SV II (from Oberliga)
- SV Meppen (from 2. Bundesliga )
- Werder Bremen II (OL)
- TSV Havelse (OL)
- VfB Oldenburg (OL)
- VfL Osnabrück (2BL)
- VfL Wolfsburg (OL)
Regionalliga Süd
- 1. FC Schweinfurt (OL)
- FC Bayern Munich II (OL)
- FC Remscheid (OL)
- Fortuna Köln (2BL)
- FSV Mainz 05 (OL)
- Kickers Offenbach (OL)
- Hessen Kassel (2BL)
- SC Freiburg (2BL)
- Preußen Münster (2BL)
- SpVgg Bayreuth (2BL)
- SpVgg Unterhaching (2BL)
- SV Darmstadt 98 (2BL)
- TSV 1860 Munich (OL)
- Alemannia Aachen (2BL)
- Union Solingen (OL)
- VfB Stuttgart II (OL)
- Viktoria Aschaffenburg (OL)
- Wuppertaler SV (OL)
