Three things we learnt from the 2.Bundesliga final day | OneFootball

After the final day of the Bundesliga yesterday, today we had the final day of the second division. There was still a lot to play for with the final automatic promotion place left to be decided, as well as who would face Heidenheim in the relegation playoff.

While at the other end, Greuther Fürth, Preußen Münster and Eintracht Braunschweig were fighting to avoid facing Saarbrücken in the relegation playoff from the 3.Liga.

Important Results:

1.FC Köln 4-0 Kaiserslautern

Greuther Fürth 3-2 Hamburg

Schalke 1-2 Elversberg

Karlsruhe 3-0 Paderborn

So, in big, what the hell is a polar bear doing in Arlington, Texas? energy. Here are three things we learnt from the 2.Bundesliga final day:

Koln return to the Bundesliga as champions:

They didn’t make it easy for themselves, did they?

Everything looked like it was going to go wrong after Tim Lemperle went on a weekend bender and proceeded to get his nose broken, which added to the pressure of today. However, you wouldn’t know that there was any pressure.

Köln got the job done without much trouble from Kaiserslautern.

Any nerves were gone within 15 minutes when Eric Martel’s header opened the scoring. Effzeh would then score again 15 minutes later to make it 2-0. A Luca Waldschmidt missed penalty could not even swing the momentum against them before Florian Kainz made it 3-0 to secure the win. To add the cherry on top, Mark Uth scored in his final game for his boyhood club. With Hamburg also remembering that they are HSV, Köln also go up as champions, as Hamburg failed to beat Greuther Fürth. (Side note, Köln’s under-19s also won the league today, coming from behind to beat Bayer Leverkusen 5-4 at the BayArena/)

Considering that Köln entered this season with a transfer ban, lost key players, and relied on academy players to help them return to the top flight, this is a big achievement, on top of promotion.

The next steps will be finding a permanent head coach and a replacement for Christian Keller, who can make sure that Köln do not head straight back down.

Can Elversberg beat Heidenheim?

Two ‘Dorfsvereins’ against one another. Both with their own unique stories.

Elversberg secured third with a win against Schalke, and my god, do they know how to play football (not Schalke). Both of the Saarland side’s goals were very impressive, they even scored a great goal that was disallowed for offside. On top of this, Elversberg have a cohort of Bundesliga on-loan talents in their team with Fisnik Asllani, Elias Baum and Muhamed Damar all standouts for Horst Steffen’s side this season.

Now, can they beat Heidenheim?

Yesterday, I said that Heidenheim would probably lose the relegation playoff if they played a ‘big side’,  now Elversberg are nowhere near a big side (in every facet of the term), but I do think that this time the 2.Bundesliga side can overcome the Bundesliga side, despite history saying otherwise.

This does raise another question (which is apparent every year, and I will be the first one to raise it this year): What is the point of the relegation playoff?

I am of the belief that due to how heavily in favour the playoff favours the Bundesliga side that instead the 16th placed Bundesliga side should be automatically relegated and instead a playoff similar to the Championship is introduced that sees 3rd vs 6th and 4th vs 5th, this not only would add more chaos to the most chaotic league in the world, but in the age of TV money, it would help the 2.Bundesliga sides are a tiny bit more likely when it comes to who gets promoted.

So the ‘playoff for this season would be:

Elversberg vs Fortuna Düsseldorf

Paderborn vs Magdeburg

In the UK, the final is played at Wembley, but this final should stay away from Berlin and be played elsewhere, whether that be in Köln, Dortmund, Hamburg or Stuttgart, for example.

Who can make a push for promotion next season?

Now, I would like to think Schalke would be a serious club and could make a push next season, but considering they finished 15th and are about as reliable with their finances as a 2008 investment banker at Lehman Brothers, I doubt this will happen.

Instead, I present: Karlsruhe

At the turn of the year, KSC looked like a very good candidate for promotion, but when they entered the rückrunde they proceeded to fail to win five games in a row and were far to inconsistent until they hit a seven game unbeaten run to end the season, but it was too little to late. Club captain Marvin Wanitzek extending his contract at the club will be a big boost going forward, meaning they are unlikely to face any major departures in the summer.

Hertha Berlin should also be in the running next season. With Fabian Reese, they look like a completely different team, and they also have the quality to mount a promotion push; they just need stability in their team. Something that had been missing at the beginning of this season.

GGFN | Jack Meenan