For a city of 3.75 million people and such enormous political and historical importance, Berlin has consistently punched well below its weight when it comes to football.
Its Olympiastadion has hosted a World Cup final, an Olympic Games and the Champions League final, while the nation's capital has produced more top-flight clubs than any other German city.
Success, however, has been surprisingly thin on the ground. For example, the last time the city's most prominent club, Hertha Berlin, were crowned domestic champions was way back in 1931.
Other clubs, such as BFC Dynamo, Tennis Borussia and Viktoria 1889, all enjoyed their moments in the top-flight limelight before fading into lower league obscurity.
But the club with perhaps the most complicated lineage and most intimately associated with the reunification of this once divided city, FC Union, are the ones currently ascending.
Their unexpected promotion into the Bundesliga at the end of last season means this Saturday we have that rarest of events - a Berlin derby in Germany's top division.
But unlike most cross-city rivalries, Hertha vs Union isn't one charged with animosity and spite. There's a fraternal bond between the two clubs, with Saturday's game described by some as a 'city championship' rather than a 'derby'.
A distance of 26km separates Hertha's 74,649-capacity Olympiastadion in the Charlottenburg district in the west of the city and Union's much more down-at-heel Stadion An der Alten Forsterei, where 22,000 will be crammed on Saturday.
But during the Cold War, when the communist East Germany was separated from capitalist West Germany, the two clubs existed at a significantly bigger distance.
The metaphorical Iron Curtain took a physical manifestation in Berlin, a city divided by a 12ft-high concrete wall between 1961 and 1989.
While Westerners were allowed to pass into East German territory through strictly controlled checkpoints, Easterners were banned from entering the West without prior consent.
What started as a political division quickly became a social and economic one as well but, as is so often the case, football served as a unifying force.
The citizens of West Berlin would pass through the checkpoints to attend Union matches, with the Alte Forsterei crowd a focal point of dissent against the Stasi, the state security service of the GDR.
And whenever Hertha played European fixtures in Eastern Europe, the travelling fanbase would consist of many Union supporters as well.
When they played a UEFA Cup quarter-final against Dukla Prague in 1979, it was recorded that 15,000 had travelled from Berlin with Union supporters mingling with the Hertha masses.
When the Wall finally came down in those tumultuous days of November 1989 and movement restrictions were eased, Union fans crossed into the West to watch Hertha matches.
One match in the second division between Hertha and Wattenscheid just two days after the Wall came down, which might ordinarily attract 10,000 spectators, saw a crowd of 44,000 after tickets were distributed to East Berliners as a gesture of solidarity.
But a far more symbolic occasion would come on January 27, 1990, some 79 days after the fall of the Wall, when Hertha hosted Union in a friendly fixture at the Olympiastadion. It was their first meeting in 28 years.
A crowd of 51,270 each paid either five Deutsche Mark (West Germany) or five East German Mark to get in and the day became a celebration of the freshly reunited city.
'Spectators were basically holding each other in their arms and celebrating,' recalled the Hertha forward Sven Kretschmer.
One of the songs born that day went 'we hold together like the wind and sea, the blue-white Hertha and FC Union' as many new friendships were forged. The result, a 2-1 win for Hertha, is of secondary importance.
But the realities of reunifying the German football system meant the two teams would only meet in friendlies for several years.
While Hertha would establish themselves as top-flight regulars in the 1990s, becoming the first Berlin side to compete in the Champions League in 1999-2000, Union struggled financially and struggled at lower levels.
They met in a July 2009 friendly match to mark the re-opening of the Alte Forsterei, which 2,000 volunteer Union fans had renovated themselves. Both sets of fans watched a spectacular firework display after Hertha's 5-3 win.
A league meeting finally happened in the second tier during the 2010-11 season. After recording a 1-1 draw on their own ground, Union sprung a surprise by defeating league leaders Hertha 2-1 at the Olympiastadion.
When Hertha came down again in 2012-13, they gained revenge with a 2-1 win away to Union before a 2-2 tie at the Olympiastadion.
All of these matches were played in a good spirit but the rivalry was once again put on ice - until now.
While Hertha secured promotion in 2013 and have been Bundesliga ever-presents since, Union were plugging away in the second division until they beat Stuttgart in a promotion play-off to reach the top tier for the first time ever.
So a rivalry is renewed. But because these two clubs from a divided city didn't play one another for so many years, the usual resentment wasn't incubated.
Hertha had competition on their doorstep from the ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful SC Charlottenburg in the 1980s, while Union's fierce rivals were Dynamo, the club of the Stasi and therefore strongly suspected of receiving state favours on and off the pitch.
If there is any bitterness, it's in how Hertha have come to pitch themselves as Berlin's club, training on rotation in each of the city's 12 districts.
Union, by contrast, very much draw their support from the working class neighbourhood of Kopenick and not much beyond.
There is also a sense that a rivalry has been invented by younger supporters of the two clubs as opposed to older fans who remember the historic camaraderie.
But there was a flare-up when Hertha suggested requesting special dispensation from the German Football League (DFL) to schedule the fixture on November 9, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Union president Dirk Zingler responded angrily: 'It's a derby; it stands for rivalry and demarcation. It's a football class war in the city.'
So perhaps the blue touchpaper has been lit for a rivalry that may finally put Berlin on the football map.