2. Bundesliga: Matchday 18 Preview
The final fixtures until the winter break sees the 2. Bundesliga enter the 'Rückrunde'. Here is the preview for matchday 18 in the 2. Bundesliga:
Holstein Kiel vs FC St. Pauli
Holstein Kiel play at the Holstein-Stadion for consecutive matches after their 2-2 draw with Sandhausen last weekend. A draw which saw Kiel take the lead and dominate the first half, only allowing Sandhausen one shot on goal (which was a goal), while creating five themselves. They dominated the second half even more, but an Aleksandr Zhirov strike on 72 minutes gave the away side the lead. Steven Skrzybski levelled the match up for the hosts with less than ten minutes on the clock, sealing a point for the Kielers.
St. Pauli were frustrated to a draw last weekend in Düsseldorf, they had the better of the first half as Fortuna didn't muster a shot on target, but with 3 on target themselves, they couldn't find the net. The second half started well for St. Pauli, Marcel Hartel scored almost instantly after the break. St. Pauli were not as good defensively in the second half, with Fortuna creating 3 shots on target. Rouwen Hennings took one of the chances. Jackson Irvine thought he'd won it for the away side, VAR took matters into their own hands and disallowed the goal for offside.
Kiel come into the match with only one victory in their last four matches, while St. Pauli are top of the league by a 4-point margin and the recent form shows three wins in their last four matches, 6 wins in their last 9.
Expected line-ups
Holstein Kiel: Dähne - Neumann, Wahl, Thesker, Kirkeskov - Holtby - Bartels, Mühling, Porath, Reese - Pichler
FC St. Pauli: Vasilj - Zander, Ziereis, J. Lawrence, Paqarada - Smith - Irvine, Hartel - Kyereh - Burgstaller, Matanovic
Fortuna Düsseldorf vs SV Sandhausen
Next up is the battle of the two teams who played the two teams above. As we've already talked about the matches, we should have a look at the head-to-head between the two sides. Fortuna edge it with 8 wins from 15 meetings, Sandhausen have won 5 of those.
Fortuna sit in 12th on the table standings with 20 points so far this season. Their record stands at 5-5-7 and they do have a negative goal difference of -1. As for Sandhausen, they are still in the relegation zone, albeit now only on goal-difference with Erzgebirge Aue. Their record stands at 3-5-9.
Expected line-ups
Fortuna Düsseldorf: Wolf - Klarer, Oberdorf, Nedelcu - Narey, Sobottka, Ao Tanaka, Koutris - Piotrowski - Iyoha, Hennings
SV Sandhausen: Drewes - Diekmeier, Höhn, Zhirov, Okoroji - Zenga, Bachmann - Ajdini, Esswein, Soukou - Testroet
Saturday 21st September - all kick-offs 13:30 local unless specified
SC Paderborn vs FC Heidenheim
SC Paderborn were left frustrated as the last match was a disappointing home defeat to high-flying Darmstadt 98. I say disappointing as Darmstadt didn't really play great, they struggled to get main strikers Pfeiffer and Tietz involved. Overall, the game wouldn't have had a goal if it wasn't for a plucky header from a corner, and that's the sort of goal that wins matches like that. It's also the sort of goals Paderborn need to be scoring, the attack hasn't been great from open play in recent affairs. SCP07 only had 9 attempts last week, a sole 2 on target. You have to be better.
Heidenheim managed to win three in a row and Frank Schmidt's side looked extremely good. The response after the 3-0 win against Jahn Regensburg? A 3-2 away defeat to Karlsruhe. Tim Kleindienst gave FCH the lead on six minutes, which was only a lead for 2 minutes as Malik Batmaz equalized for the hosts. Batmaz would appear to score again for KSC, giving them a half-time 2-1 advantage. The advantage would grow, Marvin Wanitzek scored from the spot on 56 minutes. Kleindienst gave Heidenheim a small chance of going home with a point as he cut the lead down to 3-2 with a 73rd minute goal, but Heidenheim couldn't find the net again.
Heidenheim has never beaten Paderborn in the 2. Bundesliga, and there have been five draws in seven games between the two teams.
Expected line-ups
SC Paderborn: Huth - Hünemeier, Correia, van der Werff - Ma. Schuster, Schallenberg - Justvan, Marcel Mehlem, Carls - Srbeny, Michel
FC Heidenheim: Ke. Müller - Busch, Hüsing, P. Mainka, Föhrenbach - Schöppner, Theuerkauf - Burnic, T. Mohr - Kühlwetter - Kleindienst
Erzgebirge Aue vs 1. FC Nürnberg
Erzgebirge Aue were the better team against Dynamo Dresden as they created 19 shots and 8 on target compared to Dynamo's 10 shots and 3 on target, but Aue didn't score in a match they completely dominated - this is a worry for me going forward. Ransford Konigsdorffer scored the lone goal in that match and Dresden were not good in the second half at all - only 1 shot on target and 44% of the ball. Aue has to regroup because it was a good performance against Dresden, they just really have to be scoring in those type of games.
In terms of 1. FC Nürnberg, they were dismantled at the Veltins-Arena last Friday night. They allowed Schalke (without Terodde and Butler) to have 14 shots in the firts half, even though the away side had more of the football. They were probably lucky to only concede one in the first half, but when Fabian Nürnberger equalized for the FCN just as the second half started, they must've had some hope they could savage some points. Instead, Nürnberg allowed Schalke to have 11 attempts, and S04 scored three more goals.
As already mentioned, Aue are just above Sandhausen on goal difference. They will take a lot of positives from the game last weekend, though, and will want to get a positive result from a not-so-convincing Nürnberg. Their record stands at 3-5-9. 1. FC Nürnberg are still very much in the promotion fight, they have just fallen down the pecking order to 7th, 27 points sees them only 2 points behind 3rd-placed HSV. They have a record of 7-6-4.
Expected line-ups
Erzgebirge Aue: Männel - Barylla, Majetschak, Carlson - Schreck - Strauß, Nazarov, Messeguem, Hochscheidt - Kühn, Jonjic
1. FC Nürnberg: Mathenia - Valentini, Schindler, Sörensen, Handwerker - Geis - Krauß, Tempelmann - Möller Daehli - Shuranov, Schäffler
That concludes the more in-depth look at the teams recently, a feature that will come out every week for the 2. Bundesliga preview. I will look at the first four matches in more detail. The second half of the preview will consist of statistics from the official 2. Bundesliga website.
FC Ingolstadt vs Dynamo Dresden
As a coach, Rüdiger Rehm has only won one of eight games against Dresden (1-0 away win with Großaspach in the 3rd division in March 2015), but lost six (including both second division duels with Wiesbaden in 2019/20).
The Dresden-born Stefan Kutschke has never scored in five second division games against Dynamo, but last season scored the golden goal in the third division in a 1-0 home win against Dresden. Kutschke was promoted to the 2nd Bundesliga in 2016 with SGD and scored an impressive 16 times in 32 second division games for Dresden. For Ingolstadt he was successful 12 times in 73 second division games.
The Saxons have all celebrated their four wins in 15 competitive games against FCI at home, in Ingolstadt Dynamo won only three draws and lost four times in seven guest appearances (five times in the second division, two times in the third division).
Expected line-ups
FC Ingolstadt: Buntic - Marx, Röseler, Kotzke, Preißinger - Keller, Linsmayer - Gebauer, Gaus - Kutschke, Beister
Dynamo Dresden: K. Broll - Becker, Sollbauer, Akoto, C. Löwe - Y. Stark - M. Schröter, L. Herrmann - Daferner - Königsdörffer, Borrello
Hamburger SV vs Schalke 04 - 20:30 local
Schalke celebrated its last German championship in 1958 with a 3-0 final victory in Hannover against HSV.
S04 coach Dimitrios Grammozis played his first 32 Bundesliga games for HSV (1998 to 2000, one goal). As a coach, he lost the first leg with Schalke, but was unbeaten three times with Darmstadt against his ex-club (including a spectacular 3-2 away win after 0-2 deficit in March 2019).
Schalke has been a guest in the Volkspark for the first time since April 2018. At that time the coaches were Christian Titz and Domenico Tedesco, Naldo gave the guests the lead, but in the end HSV prevailed 3-2 thanks to a late goal from Aaron Hunt.
Expected line-ups
Hamburger SV: Johansson - Heyer, Vuskovic, Schonlau, Gyamerah - Meffert - Reis, Kittel - Jatta, Glatzel, Alidou
Schalke 04: Fraisl - Thiaw, Itakura, M. Kaminski - Ranftl, Palsson, Ouwejan - Zalazar, Idrizi - Churlinov, Pieringer
Sunday 22nd September - all kick-offs 13:30 local
Karlsruhe vs Hansa Rostock
Damian Roßbach played at KSC from 2018 to 2020 (23 second division games, no goal; 37 third division games, three goals).
Overall, Rostock has only won one of the last ten competitive games against KSC (1-0 at home in October 2018 in the 3rd division).
Hansa has never won in the 2nd Bundesliga in the Wildpark (two draws, two defeats), the two away wins in Karlsruhe date from shared premier league days (2: 1 in April 2008 with double packer Fin Bartels, 2: 0 in September 1995 the goal scorers Paule Beinlich and Steffen Baumgart).
Expected line-ups
Karlsruhe: Gersbeck - van Rhijn, Gordon, Kobald, Heise - Breithaupt - Gondorf, Wanitzek - Choi, Schleusener - P. Hofmann
Hansa Rostock: Kolke - Rizzuto, Meißner, Roßbach, J. Meier - Malone - Duljevic, H. Behrens, Rhein, K. Schumacher - Mamba
Hannover 96 vs SV Werder Bremen
Hanover's coach Christoph Dabrowski will meet the club where he celebrated his greatest success as a player: in 1999 he was in the starting line-up in the final and prepared a goal when Werder won the DFB Cup against Bayern (on penalties). Between 1995 and 2001, Dabrowski played a total of 62 competitive games for the Werder professionals (five goals) and 52 appearances for the Bremen team.
Ducksch scored 32 times in 66 second division games for Hannover and was by far the best Hanoverian goalscorer in the last two seasons.
There were over 100 competitive matches between Hannover and Bremen, both faced each other 60 times in the Bundesliga and once even met internationally in the European Cup Winners' Cup.
Expected line-ups
Hannover 96: Hansen - Muroya, M. Franke, Börner, Hult - Ondoua - D. Kaiser, Kerk - Beier, Maina - Weydandt
SV Werder Bremen: Pavlenka - Veljkovic, Toprak, Friedl - Agu, C. Groß, A. Jung - Bittencourt, Schmid - Füllkrug, Ducksch
SSV Jahn Regensburg vs Darmstadt 98
In view of the injury to striker Luca Pfeiffer, Aaron Seydels could strike the hour and the 1.99-meter giant could start for the first time this season after nine substitutions so far. Seydel played for Jahn in the second half of the 2019/20 season (one goal in nine games).
Historically, there were only four wins for the Hessians in 20 competitive games in Regensburg, but 13 defeats and 43 goals against.
Darmstadt's last win against Jahn was a 3-0 away win in May 2018, including Tobias Kempe among the goalscorers.
Expected line-ups
SSV Jahn Regensburg: A. Meyer - Saller, S. Breitkreuz, Elvedi, Guwara - Boukhalfa, Besuschkow - Faber, Singh - Albers, Zwarts
Darmstadt 98: Schuhen - Bader, P. Pfeiffer, Isherwood, Karic - Kempe, Holland - Skarke, Honsak - P. Tietz, Seydel
Expected line-ups courtesy of Kicker
