Drama in the relegation
Wolfsburg is relegated from the Bundesliga for the first time
Updated May 25, 2026 – 11:19 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
The start of the game couldn’t have gone better for the Wolves. But the tide suddenly turned. A historic expulsion resulted in a historic relegation.
VfL Wolfsburg is relegated from the Bundesliga for the first time after a dramatic relegation second leg at SC Paderborn. After a 0-0 draw in the first leg, the Wolves lost 2-1 after extra time and are back in second division for the first time in 29 years. The game started extremely promisingly for coach Dieter Hecking’s team.
That’s how the game went
After just three minutes, Dzenan Pejcinovic gave VfL the lead with the first dangerous move of the game. After a flat cross from Adam Daghim from the left side, the 21-year-old attacker took the ball directly from around twelve meters and pushed it flat into the short corner.
However, Wolfsburg’s joy in front of 15,000 spectators in the sold-out Paderborn Stadium only lasted a full eleven minutes before there was a real setback. Defender Joakim Maehle committed a rude foul in midfield when he cleared Mattes Hansen and was rightly shown a yellow card. The problem for the Dane: Shortly before, he had already seen yellow after a scuffle on the sideline with Paderborn’s Filip Bilbija. And so referee Felix Zwayer consequently showed him the yellow-red card (14th). And it had a historic character: never before had a player been thrown off the pitch so early in the relegation game as Maehle.
From then on, Paderborn took command, constricted the guests from Lower Saxony in their half – and were rewarded with the equalizer shortly before half-time: Calvin Brackelmann extended a long throw-in from captain Laurin Curda onto the second post. Bilbija was in the right place and nodded in a diving header to make it 1-1 (39′).
In the second half, the third team in the second division also dominated the action and had a number of opportunities. The best: Sebastian Klaas’s shot on the post after around an hour (61′).
