Greuther Fuerth – RW Essen

The hosts in Fürth will seek revenge for the defeat in the first match

The race for a place in the next edition of the 2. Bundesliga has reached its apex. Greuther Fürth spent the entire season in this division flirting with danger, even sitting at the bottom of the table for a time. Around mid-March the Trefoils produced a decent run, climbing to safer positions, but until the final round they made so many mistakes that they found themselves in the direct relegation zone right before it. In the final round Greuther Fürth hosted their direct survival rival – Fortuna Düsseldorf. Heiko Vogel so powerfully tuned the Trefoils for the decisive match that they simply swept the guests off the pitch with a 3-0 victory, sending them directly to the 3. Liga. Undoubtedly, such a development points to the team character of Greuther Fürth. Essen also achieved local objectives on the results of the last match day of its championship. Sitting before the start of the 38th round in fourth place in the 3. Liga, Rot-Weiss Essen earned a come-from-behind victory away at Ulm, while the competing Duisburg at home could not defeat the demotivated Viktoria Köln. With a two-point gap ahead of the unlucky opponents, Essen earned the right to participate in the promotion play-offs. Bookmakers set the home team as favorites for the upcoming match, offering odds of 1.73 on their victory. The first leg between the opponents in Essen was a serious, hard-fought affair with few goal-scoring chances. The hosts proved keener, scoring the only goal of the match in the 62nd minute against Greuther Fürth. Despite Rot-Weiss Essen's current three-match winning run, it's not worth overrating this club. That run followed an appalling stretch of three defeats that Essen suffered from mid-April to early May, with an overall score of 5:13. Greuther Fürth has nothing to hinder them from showing the aforementioned character in the decisive meeting, because the team, having lost the first leg of the tie, was backed into a corner to the same extent as before hosting Fortuna in the last round of the regular season. Besides the direct rival, over the last 2.5 months the Trefoils at home beat Darmstadt and Elversberg, who were vying for promotion to the Bundesliga, and the latter actually achieved direct promotion. The hosts will take their revenge.