UContested goals, hard-fought exchange of blows – Werder Bremen pulled off an acclaimed coup in the thriller of promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga. With the 3:2 (1:0) in the explosive northern derby and top game at Hamburger SV, coach Ole Werner’s team successfully fended off the archrival’s attack on the championship lead. In front of 25,000 spectators in the seething Volksparkstadion, Marvin Ducksch (10th minute/penalty/76th) and Niclas Füllkrug (51st/penalty) scored the deserved victory for the guests, who have been unbeaten for nine games.
In contrast, the Hamburgers, who are already trying to return to the Bundesliga for the fourth season, slipped out of the promotion zone in fourth place in the table. The goals of Jonas Meffert (46th) and Robert Glatzel (80th) could not change that.
The duel between the two traditional teams, which together have won ten German championships, nine DFB Cup triumphs and three European Cup victories, was hard fought from the start. The fact that the video evidence was used for both penalty kicks by Bremen and also for the first goal of HSV by Meffert suited the dramaturgy of the game. The 27-year-old Ducksch proved to be the match winner, with his second goal 19 minutes before the end to make it 3-1.
One of the big winners of the 24th match day was SV Darmstadt. Thanks to Joker Mathias Honsak’s last-minute goal in the third minute of stoppage time to make it 1-0 in Dresden, they moved up to second place in the table. In addition, the team set a club record with the ninth away game in a row without defeat. Honsak’s substitution at the break proved to be a smart move by coach Torsten Lieberknecht. “It was pure emotion and pure joy. Before I came on, the coach said to me: ‘Honsi, it’s that time again today. You score your goal,” commented the match winner.
FC St. Pauli found its way back to success. The sovereign 3: 1 (2: 1) at relegation candidates FC Ingolstadt was a convincing sporting answer to the bitter home defeat against Hannover 96 (0: 3) a week earlier and at the same time a successful preparation for the DFB Cup quarter-finals next Tuesday Bundesliga club Union Berlin. “Of course we wanted to show a reaction because we haven’t been good in the past few games. I think we did a good job of that,” said attacker Guido Burgstaller.
On the other hand, FC Schalke 04 missed another step towards returning to the Bundesliga. After the 1:1 (1:1) at Karlsruher SC, the gap to the leader of the table increased to four points. In the first game without the lettering of their controversial Russian sponsor Gazprom on their shirts, coach Dimitrios Grammozis’ team took the lead through Simon Terodde (27th minute), but only seven minutes later had to accept an equalizer from Kyoung-Rok Choi. “Ultimately we have to live with the point today and we know that we have to improve,” said Grammozis.
Similar to FC Schalke, 1. FC Heidenheim also made no progress this weekend. After the 1:1 (1:1) against Sandhausen, the team slipped down to seventh place.
