SV Darmstadt 98, bottom of the table, will face leaders Bayer Leverkusen. When you look at the history of the Bundesliga, the situation is not as hopeless as it seems.
In May and, depending on the dramaturgy of the season finale, perhaps in the months afterwards, the discussion will arise again about where an important victory or point was missed. As close as the relegation battle in the Bundesliga is currently, which is more of a bitter dispute over the relegation place, every goal could be important on one side or the other.
To the live ticker: SV Darmstadt 98 – Bayer Leverkusen Arrow right 20th matchday Arrow right
Even now we are already calculating how many points our own club will have, just like our competitors. There are some games in these calculations that are adamantly assumed to have a specific winner. At least the fans – and probably also those in charge, who shouldn’t say it that way – of 1. FC Köln and 1. FSV Mainz 05 assume that SV Darmstadt 98 will still have eleven points and up after the 20th matchday will remain in last place in the table.
Leverkusen with a mandatory win before the top game
They will also hope that the already worst goal difference of the relegation candidates will get even worse. Bayer Leverkusen comes to the Böllenfalltor, and therefore the hopes of Cologne and Mainz are justified. Leverkusen has already scored 50 goals, hasn’t lost a game yet and is leading the table.
They are two points ahead of FC Bayern, who will be the opponents of the “Werkself” on matchday 21. So it’s a must before the big game for coach Xabi Alonso’s team, which only managed a 0-0 draw against Borussia Mönchengladbach recently, but also created a lot of chances.
“Xabi Alonso has an incredible idea for playing football. They have machines in the squad that run at 35 or 36 kilometers per hour, plus thinkers and drivers in the team,” Darmstadt’s new signing Gerrit Holtmann enthused about the opponent, before adding: “But also They have mistakes that we have to take action on. Everything is possible in our cauldron.”
Whistles in the forest
That sounds like whistling in the forest. But when you look at history, it is not as hopeless as the situation seems at first glance for the “lilies”.
Since the Bundesliga was founded in 1963, there have been 91 duels between the league leaders and the bottom teams. However, the first five matchdays are excluded from this analysis because the table does not provide a serious picture at such an early point in the season.
Eleven wins for the bottom team
Of these 91 duels, the respective leaders won 57, the last time being in November 2022, when Bayern won 2-0 at FC Schalke 04. The last time a front runner ended up at the bottom was three weeks earlier. 1. FC Union Berlin lost 2-1 at VfL Bochum. That was one of eleven victories so far by a team from bottom of the table, from which the Darmstadt team can take a little courage. They would probably be very happy with a draw, which happened 23 times.
In other words: In less than two thirds of the cases so far – in games from the sixth matchday – the table leader has won.
Victory against Bayern was the turning point for Cottbus
The two most recent victories, which came at the bottom of the team in the second half of the season, were fundamentally important. Borussia Mönchengladbach won 1-0 against eventual champions Borussia Dortmund on matchday 31 of the 2010/11 season, saved themselves from relegation under coach Lucien Favre and then in two games against VfL Bochum.
FC Energie Cottbus was so inspired after a 2-0 win against FC Bayern on matchday 24 of the 2007/08 season that they ultimately held the league quite confidently.
Saarbrücken still creates something unique today
It was only the 16th matchday of the Bundesliga when 1. FC Saarbrücken achieved something unique to date. On January 11, 1964, as bottom of the table, he won away from the leaders, 1. FC Köln. It did nothing for 1. FC Saarbrücken and it didn’t hurt Cologne. They became champions, Saarbrücken was relegated – as bottom of the table.