🇩🇪 Title race, promotion, relegation: final 2.BuLi round preview | OneFootball

🇩🇪 Title race, promotion, relegation: final 2.BuLi round preview | OneFootball

In partnership with

Yahoo sports
Icon: OneFootball

OneFootball

·18 May 2025

🇩🇪 Title race, promotion, relegation: final 2.BuLi round preview

Article image:🇩🇪 Title race, promotion, relegation: final 2.BuLi round preview

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.

After the last round of the Bundesliga, it's time for the truth in the Second Division of German football!


OneFootball Videos


You follow all the games, LIVE and FREE, here on OneFootball, from 10:30 am, Brasília time.

There is still no total definition about champion, access, and relegation, so stay tuned as we tell you everything about the 2. Bundesliga! 👇

Who takes the trophy? 🏆

Hamburg secured direct access with a thrashing, 6-1, over Ulm, in #33.

This browser is not supported, please use a different one or install the app

video-poster

In this last round, the club visits Greuther Fürth and can confirm the title if they achieve a result equal to or better than Cologne's, who faces Kaiserslautern at home.

Cologne will be champion – and also secure access – if they win, and HSV stumbles.

If they draw, Hamburg would have to lose by 25 goals to leave the leadership of the 2.BuLi.

Beyond HSV, who goes up directly? 🤔

Cologne, Elversberg, and Paderborn still dream of direct access to the Bundesliga 25/26, alongside Hamburg.

Cologne goes up directly if they draw or win against Kaiserslautern, or Elversberg and Paderborn don't win their games against Schalke and Karlsruhe, respectively.

Elversberg, in turn, can surpass Cologne and conquer direct access in two scenarios:

  • Winning against Schalke, and Cologne losing to Kaiserslautern. 
  • Even if Paderborn also wins, the difference in balance (Elversberg has +26 against +13 of Paderborn) should guarantee the unprecedented access to the Bundesliga.

For Paderborn, the situation is a bit more complicated to surpass Elversberg and Cologne and achieve direct access.

There are two scenarios, with the second depending on an incredible victory to overcome the goal difference.

  1. Winning against Karlsruhe, Cologne losing, and Elversberg not winning against Schalke.
  2. Winning against Karlsruhe, Cologne losing, and Elversberg winning — but with Paderborn winning by 14 goals more than Elversberg.

Who goes to the playoff?

Five clubs can still finish in third place to dispute the playoff against Heidenheim, who finished the Bundesliga in 16th – OneFootball broadcasts the two games of the relegation playoff!

Cologne finishes in third if they lose to Kaiserslautern and Elversberg or Paderborn win — both have a better balance.

Cologne finishes in 4th if they lose, and both Elversberg and Paderborn win.

Elversberg guarantees at least 3rd place if:

  • Winning against Schalke
  • Drawing with Schalke and Paderborn not winning
  • Paderborn losing, and both Düsseldorf and Kaiserslautern not winning

Paderborn can finish in third place in three scenarios, two of them winning their match, and one, even drawing:

  • Winning against Karlsruhe, Elversberg not winning, and Cologne not losing.
  • Winning their game, and if Elversberg wins, but Cologne loses.
  • Drawing with Karlsruhe, Elversberg losing, and Düsseldorf and Kaiserslautern not winning by good margins.

Fortuna Düsseldorf, in turn, can finish in third place if:

  1. Winning against Magdeburg, plus defeats of Elversberg and Paderborn, and Kaiserslautern not winning by a margin that surpasses them.
  2. Winning and Paderborn drawing with a reversed balance (current difference of six goals), Elversberg losing, and Kaiserslautern not winning by a sufficient margin.

Jahn Regensburg and Ulm are already relegated to the 3. Liga, with Dynamo Dresden and Arminia Bielefeld, who played in the Bundesliga in recent years, guaranteed in the 2025/26 season of the 2. Bundesliga.

Energie Cottbus (62 points, balance +13), Saarbrücken (62 pts, balance +11), and Hansa Rostock (60 pts, balance +9) dispute the place in the playoff in the last round.

The article was written based on information from the official 2. Bundesliga website

Follow all the games, live, here on OneFootball.


📸 Alex Bierens de Haan - 2025 Getty Images