Full name | F91 Dudelange |
---|---|
Founded | 1991 |
Ground |
Stade Jos Nosbaum, Dudelange |
Capacity | 2,558 |
Chairman | Flavio Becca |
Manager | Dino Toppmöller |
League | Luxembourg National Division |
2015–16 | Luxembourg National Division, 1st |
F91 Dudelange (French: [ɛf ka.tʁə.vɛ̃.ɔ̃z dyd.lɑ̃ʒ]) is a football club, based in Dudelange, in southern Luxembourg.
Dudelange's team colors are red-and-yellow vertically striped shirts, with red shorts and socks.
It was formed in 1991 from the clubs Alliance Dudelange, Stade Dudelange, and US Dudelange. All three clubs had won the National Division or the Luxembourg Cup before, but each had fallen upon hard times, and the amalgamated club was expected to be more stable, in both a sporting and financial sense.
Turning the club into a title-challenging team took a while. Stade Dudelange and US Dudelange had been in Luxembourg's third tier (the National Division), whilst Alliance Dudelange was struggling to remain in the second league (the Division of Honour). The new club would take Alliance's place in the Division of Honour in the 1991–92 season.
F91 was promoted in its first season, and soon established itself as a competent top-flight team, not finishing outside the top half of the table until 1996–97. Towards the end of the 1990s, Dudelange gradually improved, and brought to an end Jeunesse Esch's era of dominance by storming to the 1999–00 league title by eleven points.
In 2004–05, Dudelange won the title and competed in the UEFA Champions League for the 2005–06 season. In the competition Dudelange became the first club in Luxembourg's history to reach the second qualifying round, after a remarkable victory over NK Zrinjski (they lost 0–1 at home in the first leg, in the second leg they scored a goal in the 3rd minute added by the referee to equalize on aggregate, and then scored 3 more goals in extra time). However, in the second qualifying round, Dudelange was easily beaten by Rapid Wien.