Football Bet of the Day: Relegation playoff to feature goals | OneFootball

Bet of the Day

Heidenheim are hoping to avoid the drop

Germany takes centre stage tonight, as Heidenheim battle Elversberg for a place in the Bundesliga. TV commentator Kevin Hatchard believes there'll be goals at the Voith Arena...

Heidenheim v ElversbergThursday 22 May, 19:30Live on Sky Sports

Finnish failure for us yesterday, as Ilves' 3-0 win over KuPS left us a goal short of a chunky winner. Shaking our heads, we move on.

We'll head to Germany now, because Heidenheim are up against Elversberg in the first leg of the relegation playoff, and it should be an exciting contest.

Elversberg were in the mix for automatic promotion right up until the end of the season, and only missed out to eventual title winners Köln on the final day. As recently as 2022, SV were playing in the fourth-tier Regionalliga, so for them to be within a couple of good results of reaching the Bundesliga is truly remarkable.

Coach Horst Steffen has been with Elversberg on every step of that journey, and has been with the club for seven successful years. The 56-year-old had a decent playing career, and twice reached the DFB Pokal final, but reaching the Bundesliga as a coach would be his biggest achievement to date.

Elversberg finished the Bundesliga 2 season strongly, racking up an eight-match unbeaten run. Usefully for our purposes, they have scored in 24 of their last 30 matches, and a BTTS bet has landed in 16 of those 30 outings.

Heidenheim have the longest-serving coach in German football history, with Frank Schmidt having been in charge since 2007. He's racked up over 700 games at the FCH helm, and has led his team from the Regionalliga to the Bundesliga, the same journey that Elversberg are currently trying to complete.

FCH qualified for Europe in their first ever Bundesliga campaign last term, but this time around they found balancing domestic and continental duties too taxing. They were in serious danger of automatic relegation a few weeks ago, but the collection of 14 points from the final ten games got them over the line.

I'll keep this simple and back Both Teams To Score at 1.76. Elversberg are a dangerous attacking side (they rattled in 64 goals in 34 games), but Heidenheim have looked more potent in front of goal of late, and have that extra Bundesliga quality.