Elversberg, Hannover and Paderborn chase promotion glory on the final day
The gruelling nine-month 2025/26 Bundesliga 2 season all comes down to this. Heading into the final matchday, Elversberg, Hannover and Paderborn are level on 59 points. By the end of Sunday afternoon, one will be joining Schalke in the top flight, one will face the play-off, and one will be left crestfallen as their campaign ends in heartbreak…
Bundesliga 2 has a reputation for being incredibly tight both at the top and the bottom, but this term takes the biscuit.
While Schalke have become runaway champions, a trio of sides enter Matchday 34 still hoping to earn automatic promotion or, at the very least, a shot at the play-off.
Get all the Matchday 34 permutations here
As it stands, Elversberg are best-placed to finish as runners-up. They have been on the brink of promotion before, of course, finishing third last season before agonisingly losing to Heidenheim in the play-off courtesy of a last-minute second-leg winner.
It would have been easy for them to fall away this term, especially after losing head coach Horst Steffen and top goalscorer Fisnik Asllani last summer, but they have displayed superb resilience and have arguably improved this time around. Seven wins from their first nine matches set them on the right path, and they haven’t been outside the top four since September.
Their main strength has been in the final third, scoring a league-high 61 goals so far despite losing centre-forward Younes Ebnoutalib to Eintracht Frankfurt in January. Their ability to recover from personnel setbacks is remarkable, especially given that they hail from a town with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants.
On paper, they are strong favourites to get over the line. They host rock-bottom and already relegated Preußen Münster on the final day, and they know a win will almost certainly see them reach the big time. However, when push comes to shove, things aren’t always so simple, and the fact that Elversberg are without a win in seven games against Preußen will hardly calm their nerves.
Head coach Vincent Wagner, who has filled Steffen’s shoes and then some this season, knows his side have defied the odds to even get to this point. “When I see that we could potentially be promoted to the Bundesliga with a club like this, it kind of blows my imagination,” he said ahead of last week’s clash with relegation-threatened Fortuna Düsseldorf.
That clash should have put Elversberg on the brink, but, as if to underline exactly how difficult it can be to get the job done at this point of the term, they were defeated 3-1. That result will have been music to the ears of both Hannover and Paderborn, who missed the opportunity to leapfrog Elversberg last weekend after playing out draws.
A regular fixture in the Bundesliga at the start of the century, this is Hannover’s seventh consecutive campaign in the second tier. They have had a couple of sixth-place finishes, but this is by far the closest they have come to returning to the top flight.
Watch: Elversberg slip up in promotion race
They may have lost a league-low six games, but their 11 draws – four more than Elversberg – have prevented them from entering the final matchday in a more comfortable position. As it is, they must better Elversberg’s margin of victory by six if both teams win, or hope that Münster do them a huge favour.
Spearheaded by a 14-goal Benjamin Källman, the 96ers have at least lost just one of their last 15 games in Bundesliga 2, and they will feel confident that they can get the better of mid-table Nuremberg in front of their own supporters on Sunday.
Last week’s draw with Bochum was a bitter blow, but Hannover appear to have quickly turned their attention to their do-or-die clash. They have confirmed that, contrary to tradition, the players will not do a lap of honour should they not finish second. Meanwhile, head coach Christian Titz is fully focused on the task at hand.
"For us, there's still only one thing that matters: We have our last home game against Nuremberg, in front of our own fans. We have to win it."
Of the three teams still in the hunt, Paderborn have been in the Bundesliga most recently. Still, their two spells in the top flight have lasted only one season, and they were a distant 18th place in their last Bundesliga season, back in 2019/20 under Steffen Baumgart.
As such, they have unfinished business in the top tier, and will be desperate to give themselves every opportunity of promotion when they make the trip to Darmstadt, who themselves were strong candidates before dropping away in the final weeks of the season.
While they have had an undoubtedly hard run-in, Ralf Kettemann and his players will be bitterly disappointed with their recent performances. While they earned a 1-1 draw with Hannover, they suffered successive defeats against Schalke and Elversberg – the latter a 5-1 mauling – which put them on the back foot, before they could only eke out a 2-2 draw with Karlsruhe at home on Matchday 33.
The heavy loss to Elversberg also put a significant dent in their goal difference. They currently sit on +12, 10 shy of Wagner's men, against whom even a 2-1 defeat would have reduced the gap by 6. They even trail Hannover by five in that department, meaning that the result of their game is likely to be irrelevant if Hannover and Elversberg both triumph, despite all being locked on points going into the weekend.
Following the share of the spoils with Karlsruhe, sporting director Sebastian Lange remained in a relaxed mood. “At the end of a long season, everyone ends up where they belong. Now we have to show where we belong on Sunday in Darmstadt."
Watch: Elversberg put Paderborn to the sword
Indeed, the proof will be in the pudding, and Elversberg, Hannover and Paderborn all want their piece of the Bundesliga pie. By 5.30pm on Sunday, one of them will be feasting on promotion glory, another gearing up for two more decisive games, and the last licking their wounds ahead of another year in Bundesliga 2.
