analysis
Five game days before the season closed in the 2nd Bundesliga, nine teams still have opportunities for promotion. That sounds exciting at first, but above all is a sign of a lack of consistency and quality.
The 2nd Bundesliga is often referred to as the best of all time. This is because traditional associations such as Hamburger SV, FC Schalke 04, 1. FC Köln, Hertha BSC or the 1. FC Kaiserslautern play there.
Half the league is in the promotion struggle
The attractiveness of the lower house is also reflected in the number of spectators. The league is booming and is on record course when it comes to fan addition. And some Bundesliga club looks jealous of the numbers of the undermate competition.
Fans of the 2nd league, who cannot or do not want to do anything with Bundesliga clubs such as Hoffenheim, Heidenheim, Kiel, Augsburg or Leipzig, are also happy to refer to the tension in league two.
Indeed, the promotion race is tight as rarely before. Five game days before the end, nine teams can have hopes for the promotion – that’s half the league. SV Elversberg on the relegation site is just four points ahead of the ninth Hannover 96.
Patzer on the agenda
So it is exciting. With the quality it was not that far. On the last match day, only SV Elversberg, Fortuna Düsseldorf and 1st FC Nürnberg won from all teams from the upper half of the table. While Elversberg and the Fortuna were flushed three and four in the table in the table from ranks six and seven, Nuremberg is now fully in the promotion race again with three points behind.
Ulms Semir Telalovic cheers against Magdeburg.
Other teams failed – sometimes violently. Above all, the leader Hamburger SV, who lost 2: 4 against the very descent -threatened Eintracht from Braunschweig at home and thus once again missed it to avoid the competition. The Hanseatic trations had triumphed 3-0 in Nuremberg the week before.
The damage was not that big. Because the 1. FC Köln only came to a 1-1 at Greuther Fürth, and 1. FC Magdeburg lost 0-1 at the penultimate Ulm. This is probably called a “snail race” around the climb – in a league in which everyone can beat everyone.
Difficult and exciting or just not constant?
A look at the results of the six recent game days reveals: None of the teams in the first nine places have won more than three victories. “The league is difficult”said Cologne coach Gerhard Struber about the mixture. And HSV coach Merlin Polzin explained after the Braunschweig game: “The 2nd league, we see that week after week, is very narrow and very balanced. The teams have different ways and wise to play football and to win, which makes the league so exciting.”
The fact is, however: After 29 match days, the HSV has a point cut of 1.8 and thus comes to 52 points. For comparison: A league higher has already won 69 points after just as many match days – that is an average of 2.4.
Conversely, excitement also means that the teams with promotion ambitions are not constant and dominant enough to settle in the table.
Second league probably remains a surprise bag
Tension and tradition are one thing – lack of quality on the pitch is the other. If you look at the games week after week, you come to the conclusion that traditional clubs such as Hamburg, Cologne, Kaiserlautern, Schalke or Hertha belong exactly where you are.
You don’t know how things are going on the coming matchday. Hamburger SV is required at FC Schalke, Cologne has to go against Münster. Other mistakes are not excluded, and in the top game between Elversberg and Düsseldorf everything is possible anyway.