The final act of this Bundesliga season is completed on Monday as Fortuna Dusseldorf host Bochum in the playoffs.
One Step Left
After a heavy defeat in the first leg of this relegation playoff, Bochum’s Bundesliga. 1 membership is left hanging by a thread.
On Life Support
Whereas English football’s playoff system is based solely on teams aiming for promotion to the level above, a number of continental leagues do things different by also adding the potential of relegation jeopardy within the same mechanism.
One of those continental leagues to operate this more precarious format is Germany’s Bundesliga and with the team that finishes third-bottom at the end of the season going up against the team who finished third in the second tier, a two-legged clash will decide who goes up or down.
While there is always an argument as to who has the upper hand in a meeting such as this. Is it the team that is not yet automatically relegated but had a lacklustre season before having to play two more games while out of sorts?
Or is it the team that just missed out on promotion a few weeks ago and now has a second bite at the cherry? On the evidence of this season’s Bundesliga relegation playoff, you would have to say the advantage is positioned towards the latter and especially after the recent first leg result.
Bochum playing the role of nervy team in the top flight of German football, Fortuna Dusseldorf taking on the role of upstarts with nothing to lose and on the evidence of the latter’s 3-0 win on Thursday, you would have to say it was more than good fortune for Daniel Thioune’s men.
Not only did Fortuna romp to the kind of advantage that puts promotion in touching distance, but it was also on Bochum’s enemy territory. A hapless performance from a hapless outfit and now manager Heiko Butscher and his players have it all to do in Monday’s return.
If Bochum are to somehow earn an invite to the 2024/25 Bundesliga, there is going to be even more drama than what was witnessed on the final day of the regular season – drama that saw the worst possible combination of results for the Vonovia Ruhrstadion outfit.
After losing 4-1 at Werder Bremen, all eyes were then fixed on the clash between Union Berlin and Freiburg. The hosts had to win to have any chance of staying up and come the 85th minute, they had been pegged back Ritsu Doan’s leveller.
The Stadion An der Alten Försterei silenced and VfL staying up as things stood. Fast forward six minutes and the same venue was in a state of delirium. Janik Haberer slots home to keep Union up by virtue of goal difference and now Bochum need to find a huge difference of their own.
But now it is time for the first of my two tips and after such an impressive win, Fortuna Dusseldorf will not need to break too much of a sweat in order to win promotion. Therefore, I am going to opt for the draw at odds of 11/5 as Bochum suffer the drop.
In addition to this, I am going to combine the draw and a high-scoring affair on Monday. Therefore, you can get a stalemate and over 2.5 goals (meaning any draw from 2-2 is covered) and this outcome is priced at 17/2.
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