Warbeyen

The VfR Warbeyen (officially Verein für Rasenspiele Schwarz-Weiß Warbeyen 1945 e. V.) is a German association football club from the town of Kleve, North Rhine-Westphalia. Its woman's team will play in the 2. Bundesliga from the 2025–26 season onwards. Having played in the Landesliga throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Warbeyen's women's team won promotion to the fourth-tier Niederrheinliga in 2018. After an eighth place in 2019, the team was crowned as Niederrheinliga champions in 2020 on a points-per-game basis, as the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic - with Warbeyen having sat third on points with two games in hand. In 2021–22, Warbeyen won the Niederrheinpokal and thereby qualified for the 2022–23 DFB-Pokal. They were beaten 1:2 by Borussia Bocholt during the first round. Having finished third and second in the preceding seasons of the Regionalliga West, Warbeyen played a dominant season in 2024–25, winning promotion four matches in advance. Their title-winning season, one which earned them their maiden promotion to the 2. Bundesliga, ended on a controversial note: head coach Sandro Scuderi and his coaching team had decided to announce during a training session in the week of their title-clinching match against Bayer Leverkusen II that eight players, including captain Pauline Dallmann, her sister Jule, and top goalscorer Jolina Opladen would not be included in the club's plans going into the 2025-26 season. This led to the players initially forming up in two separate groups following the Leverkusen game, before eventually being convinced into taking a group photo.