At the end of the 19th game day in the 2nd Bundesliga, Hamburger SV leaders Darmstadt 98 stays on their heels. In the narrow victory in Rostock, the second in the table needs a buck from Hansa for the win. St. Pauli wins, Magdeburg shocks Karlsruher SC late.
Hamburger SV stays on the heels of Darmstadt 98 in the promotion race of the 2nd Bundesliga. Coach Tim Walter’s team won 2-0 (1-0) at Hansa Rostock and remains on course to return to the Bundesliga for the fifth time. As second in the table, the Hanseatic League increased their lead over the relegation place to four points.
Ludovit Reis (40′) with a shot through the braces of the Hansa keeper after Nico Neidhart had shot his defender Rick van Drongelen, and new signing Andras Nemeth (90′ 4) scored for HSV, which had been superior for a long time, and secured their third league win in a row . After a yellow-red card against Rostock’s Damian Roßbach (80th), Hamburg played in the last ten minutes with a majority. The gap to leaders Darmstadt is two points after 19 match days.
Rostock, on the other hand, is back in the middle of the relegation battle with their second defeat after the winter break with 21 points. The Hamburgers appeared as a top team deep into the second half and dominated a previously harmless Hansa team. But Rostock caught themselves and pushed for an equalizer in the last half hour. HSV was lucky when the hosts thought to have scored twice through Ingelsson and John Verhoek, both of whom were withdrawn for offside (68th and 70th).
Meanwhile, Hannover 96 is increasingly losing sight of promotion to the Bundesliga. After the home defeat at the start of the second half of the season against 1. FC Kaiserslautern (1:3), the Lower Saxony lost 0:2 (0:2) at FC St. Pauli. The gap to the relegation rank is already six points. Lukas Daschner (17th) and Connor Metcalfe (27th) scored for Hamburg, who celebrated their first home win against Hannover since 1994. St. Pauli has finally worked its way up to mid-table with the threesome. To make matters worse, from the guests’ point of view, Phil Neumann saw the yellow-red card (61st) for repeated foul play.
In front of 29,546 spectators in the sold-out stadium at Millerntor, things got really lively right from the start. In the home debut of the new Pauli coach Fabian Hürzeler, who won his debut last matchday at 1. FC Nürnberg (1-0), both teams missed great chances. Then Daschner got the ball after Hanover goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler failed to hold on to a long-range shot.
Metcalfe’s goal ten minutes later was initially disallowed for an alleged offside position, but after studying the video images the goal still counted. The decision was extremely close. In the second round, Hamburg managed the lead. After about an hour it became even more difficult for Hannover with ten men.
A last-minute goal by Daniel Elfadli in the fifth minute of stoppage time saved 1. FC Magdeburg a point in the 1-1 (0-1) draw against Karlsruher SC. The FCM remains bottom of the table, the KSC is fourteenth. Right-back Sebastian Jung made it 1-0 after just three minutes for the guests, who missed the chance to win for the first time since the beginning of October.
Inspired by the early lead, the guests were the more active team at the beginning, the SCM didn’t think of much in the offensive game. A shot by KSC central defender Christoph Kobald was just blocked (19′). Both teams neutralized each other as a result, KSC missed many good counterattack opportunities in the second half. In the final phase, Magdeburg had luck on their side with the equalizing goal.
