🇩🇪 Bundesliga’s smallest play-off kicks off Thursday, all you need to know | OneFootball

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The 24/25 Bundesliga playoff between Heidenheim and Elversberg will decide the last participant in the next season of the German elite.

And you can follow it all, LIVE and FREE, here on OneFootball!

If you don't remember very well how Relegation (for the Germans) works, we explain it to you!

The 16th place in the BuLi faces the 3rd place in 2. Bundesliga, to decide whether we will have three relegated clubs in the First Division - or three promotions - in the next season.

Of the 26 relegations in German football history, 20 were won by the top-flight team, 77%, according to Bundesliga information.

In the cut of the last 12 relegations, 11 were won by the team that was trying to avoid relegation - which makes Heidenheim the favorite in the confrontation, at least, on the statistics side.

Duel between small towns

Heidenheim, with around 50,000 inhabitants, facing Elversberg, with 13,000, represents the "smallest" relegation of all time.

To give you an idea, the playoff of the last season, between Bochum and Fortuna Düsseldorf, opposed cities with 372,000 people and 613,000, respectively.

In 2022/23, Stuttgart, with 632,000 inhabitants, escaped relegation against HSV, from Hamburg - the second-largest city in Germany, with 1.85 million.

Chance to make history

If they manage to get promoted, Elversberg will become the smallest team in Bundesliga history, being the 59th different club to participate in the German football elite.

Elversberg has gone through a journey to get to this chance to make history.

In the 2021/22 season, the club was in the Southwest Regionalliga - the fourth division of German football - and this is only their second season in 2. Bundesliga.

The team led by Horst Steffen scored 58 points in 34 games, finishing just one point behind the runner-up Hamburg, who was promoted directly, along with the champion Cologne.

They scored 64 goals, less than only Hamburg (78), and had the best defense in the Second Division, with 37 conceded.

Only striker Fisnik Asllani scored 18 goals, finishing on the podium of top scorers, behind Martijn Kaars (19), from Magdeburg, and Davie Selke (22), from HSV.

Retrospect

Heidenheim and Elversberg have faced each other only twice in history, in the 3. Liga in 2013/14.

Heidenheim won once, 1-0, with a 1-1 draw in the other game of the season.

Frank Schmidt, Heidenheim's coach, praised his rival on Thursday, in a recent interview.

Heidenheim surprised in the Bundesliga, just under a year ago, when they debuted in the German elite, finishing in eighth place, with a spot in the Uefa Conference League playoffs.

The dispute in the European competition, however, had a cost in the performance in the Bundesliga.

The club flirted with relegation for much of the season and needed a late surge to secure the relegation playoff.

And who will make an appearance in the 2025/26 Bundesliga?

📸 Christian Kaspar-Bartke - 2025 Getty Images