2nd Bundesliga on Sunday
Surprise team at the top – Hannover fails
Updated 12/15/2024 – 3:28 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
With teams like Hamburger SV, Schalke 04 and 1. FC Köln, a few of Germany’s biggest clubs play in the 2nd league. But at the top there is a soccer dwarf.
1. FC Köln, who won 3-1 against Nuremberg this Sunday, are tied with Elversberg in second place. Hannover 96, on the other hand, lost their way to the top, losing 1-0 in Fürth after conceding a late goal.
SV Elversberg took the lead in the table for the first time in the club’s history. With a 3-0 (0-0) win against relegation candidate Eintracht Braunschweig, the Saarlanders replaced SC Paderborn at the top. Fisnik Asllani (62nd, 79th) secured the success with a brace. Maurice Neubauer (90th + 1) brought the final point.
Elversberg, which has been keeping up surprisingly well in the tight promotion race for weeks, now has 28 points like 1. FC Köln and Paderborn, but has the better goal difference. The success against second-to-last Braunschweig was the fourth win in the last five games. This ended Eintracht’s strong streak, which had previously not lost five home games.
1. FC Köln continued their successful run and took second place. Coach Gerhard Struber’s team won 3-1 (3-0) in the traditional duel against 1. FC Nürnberg on matchday 16 thanks to Damion Downs, who was involved in all the goals. It was the seventh win from the last eight competitive games the Rhinelander.
Downs (6th), Florian Kainz (17th, penalty kick) and Denis Huseinbasic (31st) scored the goals for Cologne, who made a big leap in the narrow upper half of the table. Jens Castrop (59th) scored for Nuremberg. Miroslav Klose’s team, which started well, has to look downwards after the seventh game without a win.
Hannover 96 missed out on a possible jump to the top of the table. Coach Stefan Leitl and Lower Saxony lost 0-1 (0-0) with his former club SpVgg Greuther Fürth on Sunday after a tired performance. Noel Futkeu made the Franconians celebrate with his late goal (84th).
With a win, Hannover would have taken the lead for the first time since matchday 12, but nothing was going well for the “Reds”, especially on offense. The Lower Saxony team went into the last game of the year against Hertha BSC two days before Christmas Eve in fifth place, while Fürth climbed to twelfth place with their second win in a row.