2nd league
HSV loses against Osnabrück – Wiesbaden beats Elversberg
HSV coach Steffen Baumgart suffered a defeat in the home game against Osnabrück despite having the majority. photo
© Christian Charisius/dpa
Hamburger SV loses against the 18th place in the table. VfL Osnabrück 1:2 late on. At that point, the people of Hamburg were actually in the majority.
With a surprising defeat against bottom-placed VfL Osnabrück, Hamburger SV missed a great opportunity in the promotion race of the 2nd Bundesliga. Hamburg lost 1:2 (1:1) late on in the Volksparkstadion, which was sold out with 57,000 spectators. It was the first defeat in the second game under new coach Steffen Baumgart. He would have Thanks to the mistakes made by their rivals, HSV were able to leave Holstein Kiel behind and shorten the gap to league leaders FC St. Pauli.
But HSV once again missed a good opportunity in the promotion race. Osnabrück’s Lukas Kunze made it clear early on with his goal in the 6th minute that Hamburg had a tough task ahead of them. Robert Glatzel (45+2/foul penalty) equalized. Osnabrück was outnumbered from the 76th minute onwards, but shortly before the end Michael Cuisance (89th/foul penalty) scored to give Osnabrück a surprise win.
The Lower Saxony team got off to an optimal start. Cuisance sent a free kick sensitively to Kunze, who volleyed the ball into the goal at the second post. It took HSV a while to recover from the shock, but they improved their performance. Glatzel scored from the penalty spot before the half-time whistle. HSV became more dominant in the second half, Ransford Königsdörffer (52nd) missed the opening goal after a cross from Jonas Meffert. Osnabrück’s Gyamfi saw yellow-red in the 76th minute. After a foul by Ignace van der Brempt on Robert Tesche, Cuisance scored a surprising victory from the penalty spot shortly before the end of the game.
Wehen Wiesbaden dupes Elversberg
SV Wehen Wiesbaden duped SV Elversberg with birthday boy Horst Steffen and gained more breathing room in the relegation battle. In the duel between the promoted teams, the Hessians won 3-0 (1-0) against the Saarlanders and are now six points ahead of the relegation place 16. Elversberg remains in eleventh place in the middle of the table. Thijmen Goppel (44th minute), Hyun-Ju Lee (49th) and John Iredale (84th) scored the goals for the guests in front of 8,071 spectators in the Ursapharm Arena at Kaiserlinde.
In the first round, both teams largely neutralized each other. There were hardly any chances. It was unfortunate for Elversberg that the defense had to be changed again after Arne Sicker was out due to injury (24′). As a result, the guests had a little more of the game. Goppel took advantage of a counterattack to take the lead shortly before half-time, which Lee increased with a beautiful shot into the corner of the goal just four minutes after the restart.
Elversberg seemed inhibited. The quick switching game was hardly successful. Coach Steffen saw even more chances from the guests on his 55th birthday, but Ivan Prtajin (55th/63rd) missed. Substitute Iredale did better later. For the Hessians it was the first away win since the beginning of November 2023 and the first in Elversberg since August 2006, back then in the regional league.
Paderborn missed the jump to fourth place
SC Paderborn has missed a big step forward in the promotion race. The East Westphalia team had to settle for a 0-0 draw against 1. FC Magdeburg with a point split. With a win, coach Lukas Kwasniok’s team would have made it to fourth place and thus their best placement of the season so far. The Magdeburg team remained winless in their sixth second division game against Paderborn.
In front of 13,566 spectators in the Home Deluxe Arena, the guests, who were able to please with a 3-0 gala against FC Schalke 04 last weekend, proved to be the expected stubborn opponents, who showed a stable defensive performance and only beat the Paderborn team for a long time left too few chances. In the final phase, guest player Luca Schuler was shown a red card for foul play. Despite some good opportunities, the hosts were unable to score the winning goal.