A dozen teams with no aspirations: Coming into the final matchday, the field has cleared up in most battles here in the Bundesliga II. At the top of the table, Kaiserslautern and St. Pauli are the teams promoted to the top division, Augsburg will play against Nurnberg in the play-off match.

 At the bottom, Ahlen and Koblenz have been relegated and the only real battle that is still undetermined is that between Hansa and Frankfurt regarding 15th place, as one of the two will have to play a play-out match against Ingolstadt in order to remain in the 2nd division. 1st place is still up for grabs, but we still have 12 teams left with absolutely nothing to play for, so we are looking at at least 5 matches between those teams that can’t be easily previewed, as we can’t be sure of which players each coach will use.
 

Sunday 9th May 2010

Kick off time at 17:30 CET

Battle for 15th place:

Frankfurt vs Koblenz
The hosts here control their own fate. Their task seems as easy as it can be, given the fact that they are facing a relegated team at home, however the first thing that comes to my mind is last week’s “easy task” against Ahlen, bye far the worst team in the league, that Frankfurt failed to beat. They were quite lucky to have stayed ahead of Hansa. They’ve been particularly strong at home during 2010, where they’ve remained undefeated for 7 straight matches after January (4 wins, 3 draws) and after Koblenz played their last game in front of their own fans this season last week against Kaiserslautern I don’t think they’ll find much to play for here. My main concern is Frankfurt’s inability to score goals lately, especially last week against Ahlen they were very lucky not to concede and lose the match. Moreover, they may be getting some good news from Dusseldorf so they may not push all the way if they haven’t taken the lead already.
Verdict: Home win (1.45 at expekt)



Dusseldorf vs Hansa Rostock
The hosts finally couldn’t keep up with Augsburg so, naturally, their dreams of being promoted will have to wait at least another year. They have the best home record in the league, still undefeated after 16 matches (12 wins, 4 draws) and they’ve conceded just 5 goals. Hansa are after 15th place, but they’ll need to win this one and at the same time hope that Frankfurt won’t beat Koblenz in order to take it. They were very unlucky not to beat Cottbus at home last week, a victory which would have put them ahead of Frankfurt. They created a great deal of chances but lost all of them, to a point I was beginning to think that had it been an Italian 2nd division match, I’d swear it would have been fixed! They’ve only won 3 of their 16 matches played away from home this season, so do they actually have a chance against the league’s top home team? The answer is yes. All we have to remember is what happened 2 weeks ago. Since they beat Kaiserslautern away from home I’m sure they can do the same with Dusseldorf. However I must say I don’t have enough trust in their skills to use high stakes, plus if they hear bad news coming from Frankfurt (which is very likely) they may lay back to save some energy for the play-out match.
Verdict: Away win (2.63 at bet365)

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Battle for 1st place:

Kaiserslautern vs Augsburg
This could be a very interesting match to watch. The hosts have already secured promotion to the top division, but they may look for the win in order to take 1st place. They haven’t been doing so well lately, as they’ve won just 1 of their last 5 games. Augsburg were not doing very well either, but last week they beat Munich 1860 at home to secure 3rd place. They’ll be facing Nurnberg from the top division in the playoffs so I guess they’ll be looking to remain sharp as well as avoid any unnecessary injuries here. The hosts will be celebrating their promotion in front of their own fans and the visitors have more important things drawing their attention right now, so I believe we could see a home win here.
Verdict: Home win (1.70 at bwin)




St. Pauli vs Paderborn
Last week marked St. Pauli’s return to the Bundesliga I after 8 years. They came back from 1 goal behind at halftime to beat Greuther Furth by 1-4 away from home just one week after scoring 6 goals against Koblenz. They’ve scored a total of 71 goals in the league, 12 more than Augsburg and 16 more than Kaiserslautern. They will be celebrating their promotion in front of their own fans and what would be a greater way to please them than beating Paderborn?
The visitors said goodbye to their own fans last week and I guess the players will be thinking more about their vacations at this point. The hosts have 20 wins in the league so far, more than any other team, and in case they win they may even finish inn 1st place, if Kaiserslautern don’t beat Augsburg. The visitors have won 3 of their last 4 games (1 draw), however I believe it’s time for them to lose a match that doesn’t even really mean anything to them.
Verdict: Home win (1.60 at expekt)
 

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