the club's timely success earned them a place in the bundesliga alongside dynamo dresden when the top-flight bundesliga was briefly expanded from 18 to 20 teams for the 1991–92 season to accommodate two former east german teams. hansa, however, was unable to stay up and was relegated after falling just a single point shy of sg wattenscheid 09. three seasons of tempering in the 2. bundesliga would return the club to the top flight for the 1995–96 season. in ten years spent in the bundesliga, the team's best results were a pair of sixth-place finishes. in spite of frequent placings in the bottom-half of the league table, they would persist as the only former east german side able to consistently challenge the well-heeled clubs of the west. on 1 december 2002, rostock became the first club to field six foreigners from the same country in a bundesliga match (rade prica, marcus lantz, peter wibrån, andreas jakobsson, magnus arvidsson and joakim persson – all swedes).