Introduction of the 2. Bundesliga

Bundesliga was the step of establishing a professional second tier association football league in Germany in 1974.

The Regionalliga was played in five regional divisions, North, West, South, South-West and Berlin.

The two teams relegated from the Bundesliga, Hannover 96 and SC Fortuna Köln, were deducted from the quota of the region they belonged to.

[3] The qualifying system took into account the last five seasons of the Regionalliga, whereby points were awarded for final placings.

If two clubs where on equal points overall the final placing of 1973–74 was taken to determine who ranked higher.

Eintracht Braunschweig, the last champions of the Regionalliga Nord and the team with the most points in the five-year ranking for the league won promotion to the Bundesliga in 1974.

TuS 93 Bremerhaven and VfB Lübeck had also played in the league in every season but generally been less successful.

FC Mülheim-Styrum, with two, had been relatively new to the Regionalliga, while Preußen Münster, Borussia Dortmund and Arminia Bielefeld had been former Bundesliga sides.

[5][6] The points table:[3] Of the Regionalliga Berlin clubs, only Wacker 04 took up the option of entering the new 2.

[5][7] The points table:[3] Twenty teams from two different leagues qualified for the southern division.

The last champions of the league, FC Augsburg, finished fourteenth in the five-year ranking, nominally just outside the thirteen qualified teams.

[8][9] The points table:[3] The Regionalliga Südwest saw some controversy in selecting their seven clubs qualified for the 2.

Bundesliga when SV Alsenborn was omitted for failing to fulfill all license regulations and eight placed 1.

[2][10][11] The other six clubs were all more obvious choices, Borussia Neunkirchen a former Bundesliga club, SV Röchling Völklingen, FSV Mainz 05, VfR Wormatia Worms and FK Pirmasens all having played every season in the league and, at various occasions either finished champions or runners-up.

The seventh club, FC 08 Homburg, had entered the league in 1966 and gradually improved without ever finishing in the top two.

FC Ensdorf, with three to its name, held the lowest point total of any Regionalliga club of 1973–74.

[9][12] The points table:[3] Unlike in 1963 when the Bundesliga was introduced and the league system below it experienced major changes, too, the introduction of the 2.

[2] In this format it stayed until 1992, when the German reunion and the influx of clubs from former East Germany led to an expansion of the league to 24 teams for two seasons.

The champions were promoted directly while the runners-up played each other in a two-leg play-off to determine another spot.

FC Saarbrücken and Darmstadt 98, with Nikolaus Semlitsch scoring the first-ever goal of the new league.