players from their youth department and their reserves. This young team finished tenth in the Oberliga Nordost-Süd and won the Saxony-Anhalt-Cup for a fifth time. Despite this negative development, average attendance stayed at the same level. After the club had almost gone bust, its board restructured it and began to work at a slow, but steady reconstruction. In 2004, the city of Magdeburg resolved to build a new stadium, which meant that 1. FC Magdeburg had to move to the much smaller Heinrich Germer Stadium. The patient rebuilding of the squad paid off eventually, when the club was re-promoted to Regionalliga Nord in 2006. Additionally, Magdeburg won the Saxony-Anhalt-Cup for a sixth time. The 2006–07 Regionalliga Nord season saw Magdeburg with the simple goal of non-relegation and setting the foundation for qualifying for the new 3rd Liga in the 2007–08 season. In December 2006 Magdeburg moved to their new stadium, dramatically increasing attendance. With their fans as support, Magdeburg started a run of great results after the winter break that opened up the opportunity to win promotion to the Second Bundesliga immediately, a feat only two other teams (FC Gütersloh and Carl Zeiss Jena) had achieved before. But despite having a five-point lead on the third-placed team three matchdays before the end of the season, Magdeburg eventually finished in a disappointing third place. In the Saxony-Anhalt-Cup the reserves won the club's seventh title. In the following season the club missed out on qualification for the newly created 3rd Liga. After a terrible first half of the campaign with as little as 24 points from 21 matches, the board sacked manager Dirk Heyne and replaced him with Paul Linz. This proved to be a successful measure as the club moved to a qualifying spot with only two games to go. But a home defeat to Rot-Weiß Essen eventually destroyed all hopes of qualification and Magdeburg finished eleventh behind Eintracht Braunschweig on goal difference. Attendance remained high throughout the season, averaging 11,800 spectators. For the first season in the new tier-IV Regionalliga Nord, the Magdeburg board gave out immediate repromotion as the team's goal. As only one player had a valid contract for the new league, the club was forced to bring in a large number of new players. Especially in the midfield virtually none of the previous season's squad was retained. With just the top spot bringing promotion, the task for