FC Carl Zeiss Jena

An audience magnet in blue, yellow and white

The FCC has always been an uncommon football club. Since its establishment in 1903, it has captured the imagination of football fans in Thuringia and many parts of Germany. In over a century, the FC Carl Zeiss Jena has won some legendary victories: it was the first German football club to walk off the pitch victorious on 'the Island'. Its 87 European Cup matches have gained the club both fame and notoriety. The FCC has beaten the likes of AS Rom, FC Valencia, Benfica Lissabon and Ajax Amsterdam and made it all the way to the European Cup final in 1981. As the #1 in the 'Eternal GDR First League Table' the FCC is the most successful club of former East Germany. And: Jena was the first football club to play in shorts.

Its DFB track record for the 2007/08 season - FCC played in the second league at the time - is also legendary: one after the other, Jena eliminated the defending champion 1. FC Nuremberg, Arminia Bielefeld and the reigning German champion VfB Stuttgart. It was finally vanquished by Borussia Dortmund in the semi-finals in front of 80,708 spectators - at the time, the biggest crowd to have ever attended a DFB Cup match.

The FCC's blue-and-yellow allure remains unbroken: Around the world, its more than 150 fan clubs cheer the club on - which puts the FC Carl Zeiss Jena firmly above some established second-league teams and proves that FCC fans' loyalty is not dependent on its league.

The FC Carl Zeiss's home ground is the Ernst-Abbe-Sportfeld in Jena. It can accommodate 12,620 spectators and may well have the sweetest-sounding address in German football: "Im Paradies" (In Paradise).