The Champions League and relegation rounds are approaching on the last day of the Bundesliga
Two dramatic three-way contests will dominate the final day of the Bundesliga season on Saturday as Stuttgart lead the Champions League qualification race and former champions Wolfsburg battle to avoid a historic relegation.
The top three are already clear after Bayern Munich clinched the title last month, while Borussia Dortmund finished second and Leipzig third.
Advertisement
Essential integration
Stuttgart is currently in fourth place in the Champions League. Hoffenheim and Bayer Leverkusen want it.
Stuttgart’s last game is tough at Eintracht Frankfurt. A win there would almost certainly guarantee fourth place. If Stuttgart drops the points, Hoffenheim can clinch fourth by bettering Borussia Moenchengladbach and return to the Champions League for the first time since 2017-18.
Leverkusen need to beat Hamburger SV and hope Stuttgart and Hoffenheim lose.
Bundesliga champions in 2008-09, Wolfsburg have not been relegated from the top flight since 1997. It is one of the bottom three teams, all level on points, chasing one shot to survive.
Advertisement
17 and 18 teams – St. Pauli and Heidenheim – automatically postponed. The 16th-placed team, Wolfsburg at the moment, enters the playoffs for a team playing in the second division.
Wolfsburg visited St. Pauli on Saturday and losing in all the ways down. Heidenheim can still leapfrog both with a win at home to Mainz.
The second division will enter its final day on Sunday as promotion is at stake. Schalke are already back in the Bundesliga as champions but Elversberg, Hannover and Paderborn are level on points chasing second place.
Elversberg, from a small town close to the French border, have the advantage of goal difference and a win against a tired Preussen Muenster should do it.
Advertisement
Players to watch
If Stuttgart can reach the Champions League, it will be thanks to Deniz Undav, whose 19 goals are second only to Harry Kane in the Bundesliga this season.
Hoffenheim’s Champions League push rests on Andrej Kramaric, who has made more than 300 appearances for the club, including young striker Fisnik Asllani.
England captain Kane’s shot at Robert Lewandowski’s Bundesliga single-season goalscoring record may be gone after Bayern opted to focus on keeping him fit for the Champions League, but he could still sign in style.
Kane has 33 goals for Bayern in the Bundesliga and 55 in all competitions before hosting Cologne on Saturday.
Advertisement
Who is out
Bayern’s Canadian defender Alphonso Davies has suffered a hamstring injury less than a month since the World Cup. His teammate Serge Gnabry revealed that he will not play in the tournament in Germany after tearing his thigh muscles.
Outside the arena
This is the last game in charge of coach Marie-Louise Eta, who became the first woman to coach in any of Europe’s big five men’s leagues when she took over on an interim basis at Union Berlin, where she got her first win last week.
Hosting Augsburg on Saturday is the last game for Eta on a five-game winning streak. He takes over the Union women’s team next season.
_____
AP Soccer:
