2nd league
Düsseldorf (dpa) – Werder Bremen drew level with the new leaders FC St. Pauli on points with a narrow victory in the second division top game against SV Darmstadt 98.
The promotion favorite prevailed 1-0 (0-0) on Saturday evening. FC Schalke 04, who gave interim coach Mike Büskens a sense of achievement on his 54th birthday, also have good prospects in the promotion race of the 2nd Bundesliga. The Royal Blues beat Hannover 96 2-1 (1-0) in front of 55,152 spectators.
A week ago, Büskens followed the 3-0 win at FC Ingolstadt (3-0) from the Corona quarantine. “After the 2-1 it was great. You know what Schalke is like,” said S04 goalkeeper Martin Fraisl about the atmosphere. Against Hannover, Büskens saw goals from Ko Itakura (43′) and Rodrigo Zalazar (54′) when Cedric Teuchert (49′) conceded. Schalke now has 47 points under Büskens, who succeeded Dimitrios Grammozis until the end of the season, and have their sights set firmly on promotion again. Darmstadt is only third with 48 points, Bremen and St. Pauli each have 51 points.
Werder wins against ten Darmstadt
Bremen had to do without five regular players who were injured or infected with the corona virus against Darmstadt, but benefited from an early red card for Klaus Gjasula from Darmstadt in the 23rd minute in front of 41,000 spectators. The Lilien were the better team up to that point, but under increasing pressure, they conceded the decisive goal from Niclas Füllkrug (52nd) shortly after the break. Goalkeeper Marcel Schuhen prevented a higher defeat.
Referee Robert Schröder initially only gave Gjasula a yellow card after a foul on Romano Schmid, but then looked at the offense again on his screen during the break in treatment for the Werder player. Then he decided on red.
Hamburger SV is losing sight of the promotion ranks more and more. In the 1: 1 (0: 0) at Fortuna Düsseldorf with former HSV coach Daniel Thioune, Robert Glatzel (90+3) saved at least one point after Düsseldorf’s lead by Adam Bodzek (85th). With 42 points, the goal of promotion is far away. “It’s not an easy phase, but we’ll fight our way out of it. The morale is right, that shows the character of the team,” said Hamburg’s sports director Jonas Boldt on Sky. HSV, which was recently shaken by Corona cases, has been without a win for four games and still has a catch-up game against Erzgebirge Aue on April 5th.
In the fight to stay up, promoted Hansa Rostock celebrated an important 1-0 (0-0) win at direct competitor SV Sandhausen thanks to John Verhoek’s 15th goal of the season.