The Nordderby or North derby is a match between

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

and

Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen (), Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen, Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, they are best known for the ...

, the two most successful and popular clubs in

Northern Germany Northern Germany (german: link=no, Norddeutschland) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony an ...

. The Hamburger SV (HSV) was created in 1887 and plays its matches at the Volksparkstadion. Meanwhile, Werder Bremen was founded in 1899 with Weserstadion as its home ground. Beyond football, there is also a rivalry between the cities of

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

and

Bremen Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state cons ...

, which are only separated by a hundred kilometers and they are also the two biggest metropolises in this part of the country.

Circumstances regarding the rivalry between the two clubs

The match between Werder Bremen and Hamburger SV is the most frequently played match in the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footb ...

: Bremen played in the Bundesliga from

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – In ...

and from 1981 to

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

, while Hamburg were a Bundesliga club without interruption from 1963 to

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

. The fact that Werder Bremen and HSV are the biggest clubs in

and

respectively, said cities being the biggest Hanseatic cities and also the biggest in the north of the country contribute to the rivalry. The catchment areas of Hamburger SV and Werder Bremen border on each other and overlaps between the two are not uncommon. In particular, there is an overlap in the districts (''

Landkreis In all German states, except for the three city states, the primary administrative subdivision higher than a '' Gemeinde'' (municipality) is the (official term in all but two states) or (official term in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia ...

'') of

Cuxhaven Cuxhaven (; ) is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven ...

and

Rotenburg Rotenburg may refer to: *Rotenburg (district), Lower Saxony, Germany *Rotenburg an der Wümme, capital of the district *Rotenburg an der Fulda, near Kassel in Hesse *Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in the Franconia region of Bavaria *Hersfeld-Rotenburg, ...

(

Wümme Wümme () is a river in northern Germany, in the states Lower Saxony and Bremen, marking the border between the two states for part of its course. It is the main headstream of the Lesum. The Wümme's length is . Including the Lesum, that runs in ...

), which belong to

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

. Fans of both clubs are neighbours and the majorities differ according to location. A contribution to the rivalry was also made by the death of Adrian Maleika, a Werder Bremen fan, who was hit by a stone by Hamburg hooligans in the run-up to a match between Hamburger SV and the Bremen club in the DFB Cup in 1982, and he succumbed to the stone throwing in a Hamburg hospital. The relationship between Werder Bremen supporters and the Hamburgers was considered "quite normal" until this event.

History

The game was first contested in 1927 with HSV recording a 4-1 away win. Since the founding of the Bundesliga in 1963, the match has been held twice every season, except in 1980–81, because Werder had been

relegated In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

to the

2. Bundesliga The 2. Bundesliga ( ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below ...

in the previous season. To date, 152 games have been contested with Werder holding a slight lead of 57 wins to HSV's 53. 42 games have ended in a draw. The pinnacle of the rivalry came in 2009 when they met four times in 18 days. Two of the four matches came in

European competition The European Competition is a student competition in which students of all ages submit creative, artistic, or written pieces of work on the activities of the European Union. Tendered by European Movement Germany, it is the oldest student competition ...

at the

semi-final A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...

stage of the last edition of the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

. After losing 1-0 at home in the first leg, Werder won 3-2 in Hamburg to advance to the final on

away goals The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

. In the 2021–22 season the nordderby has been played in 2. Bundesliga for the first time, after the relegation of Werder in the 2020–21 season, and the third consecutive failure promotion of HSV, after the relegation in 2017–18.

All-time results

Results since the formation of

in 1963.

Head to head

Overall match statistics. ''*'' Cup game finished 1–1 after 120 minutes, won by Werder Bremen on penalties.

Honours

Head-to-head ranking in Bundesliga (1964–2022)

External links

* *
German football statistics and information
{{German football rivalries Hamburger SV SV Werder Bremen Association football rivalries in Germany Football in Hamburg Football in Bremen (state)