The Bundesliga final is just around the corner and the fight for the most important placings is still in full swing. The fight for the championship, the Champions League, the European League and the relegation is still open and therefore full of tension. SOCCERSCORE places the signs on the table before the penultimate matchday.
For the first time since the 2009/10 season, it is not yet clear on the penultimate matchday of the Bundesliga who will be the champions in the end. At that time Schalke 04 had a patz in the home game against Werder Bremen. Goals from Mesut Özil and Hugo Almeida gave FC Bayern the championship in the long-distance duel.
This year, it is up to the Munich team itself to secure the first title of the season on the 33rd matchday. One win or two draws from the remaining two matchdays are enough for the record champion.
The FCB has the first match point in the away game at the formal RB Leipzig (no defeat since the 18th matchday). And it is there of all places that the Munichers have to survive without four stars. In addition to the safe losses of Manuel Neuer and Javi Martinez, the bets of James Rodriguez and Robert Lewandowski are also questionable.
Because the Leipziger meet the Bavarians again only two weeks later, then in the much more important DFB Cup final, there was a lot of speculation whether RB coach Ralf Rangnick would send a B-Elf into the race for tactical reasons. However, he said cool: “To play on Saturday with marked cards and lose like Sepp Herberger 1954 against Hungary with a B-Elf 3:8 does not go. A sense of achievement has a psychological impact on the cup final.”
The record champion may not expect any presents in Leipzig and will have to stretch himself to hold the bowl virtually in his hands already on Saturday. Unlike the FCB, Borussia Dortmund is doomed to victory in the last two games because the BVB has been getting in its way over and over again over the past few weeks.
After a strong hour against Werder Bremen, the BVB recently lost a two-goal lead to Werder Bremen and, after three painful defeats in the second half, must hope for two slips by the record champion. If things go very badly and the black-yellows don’t recover from the low blows in Bremen and in the derby against Schalke 04, the five points behind Dortmund lurking competition from Leipzig could even pass BVB.
On the 33rd matchday, Fortuna Düsseldorf, a rising star, awaits Borussia in their home Westfalenstadion with a supposedly feasible task, but that was already thought of in the first half of the season. In mid-December it was Fortuna who taught Lucien Favre the first compulsory game bankruptcy as BVB coach.
BVB also had major problems in the second half of the season against the “little ones”, for example against Nuremberg (0:0), Augsburg (1:2) and Mainz 05 (2:1). Favre are also likely to lack two regulars against Fortuna: goalkeeper Roman Bürki and defender Abdou Diallo are unlikely to be operational. The omens on this matchday therefore speak in favour of a preliminary decision in the fight for the championship.
There’s one place left in the sun called the Champions League. And five teams are fighting for fourth place, which promises not only to participate in the premier class in the coming season, but also to make a lot of money. 25 to 30 million euros are guaranteed. This makes hearts beat faster in Frankfurt, Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim.
At first glance, Frankfurter Eintracht and Bayer Leverkusen have the best cards in their hands, with 54 points each for the 33rd matchday. However, the SBU comes after the Battle of London on the gums.
The fact that the European Cup adventure cost a lot of money has already been shown by the past appearances in the Bundesliga: The SGE could not win four games in a row and went down last Sunday with 1:6 in Leverkusen. After the dramatic and exhausting end of the Europa League semi-final, Eintracht will exceptionally have one more day off and will not play the derby against Mainz 05 until Sunday.
The last matchday will also be against former coach Niko Kovac and FC Bayern, who may still be in the championship match. The Werkself, on the other hand, plays the best football of the season in the season finale and won the last four games. In the season finale it will be first against Schalke 04 and then against Hertha BSC. Quite feasible tasks for Bayer.
Borussia Mönchengladbach and VfL Wolfsburg are two points behind the Leverkusen team. Since February the foals are the problem child of the league, the departure of coach Dieter Hecking is already decided after a completely messed up second round. Hecking wants to say goodbye by qualifying for the Champions League, but Gladbach will most likely need six points from the last two games.
On the 33rd match day, the foal team will have a compulsory task in Nuremberg. On the last matchday Borussia has to deal with the other Borussia. And that’s the one from Dortmund who might like to have a say about the championship. Forecast: Tendency Europa League.
Like Dieter Hecking, Wolfsburg coach Bruno Labbadia and Hoffenheim coach Julian Nagelsmann also want to say goodbye to their employers with the “Champions League” label. For both, however, the same applies: at least the Europa League should jump out in the season finale. After all, this would promise around ten million euros in additional revenue. The wolves have the better starting position and are one point ahead of Hoffenheim.
The seventh and last place in the Eruopa League is even being speculated by SV Werder Bremen, who are five points behind in ninth place. Bremen would have to master its own difficult tasks against Hoffenheim and Leipzig in order to qualify for Europe.
In the snail race for class retention, only the relegation place is rudimentarily vacant after Schalke 04 finally saved himself with a goalless draw against FC Augsburg last matchday.
VfB Stuttgart currently holds the best cards for the traditionally promising sixteenth place in the table. A win in the home game against Freiburg and the Swabians get 180 extra minutes to fight for remaining in league one.
The 1st FC Nuremberg and Hannover 96 still pursue this goal. The cellar children with five, respectively six points behind are not exactly in a promising position. Faith, however, is known to move mountains in the battle to descend. Even if both teams need a perfect yield and even then are dependent on the double failure of the VfB.
