The Game Turned Late
BERLIN — Small-town club Elversberg clinched promotion to the Bundesliga for the first time on Sunday, finishing runner-up in Germany's second division behind already promoted Schalke after a 3-0 win at home over Preußen Münster.
Early goals from Bambasé Conté and David Mokwa, then another from Mokwa, gave Elversberg the three points needed to finish ahead of Paderborn on goal difference. Elversberg will be the 59th club to play in the top division since the Bundesliga's formation in 1963.
The matchup already has enough history; the job is to keep the reading list shorter than the tension.
"It's hard to grasp what just happened here," Elversberg forward Luca Schnellbacher said. "It feels like a dream. I'd never have imagined that Harry Kane will be walking out at this ground."
The Small Details Added Up
The club hails from a town of 13,000 inhabitants in Saarland, a southwest German state. Elversberg lost a promotion playoff to Heidenheim last year and was playing in the fourth tier as recently as 2022, earning back-to-back promotions to reach the second division.
Three teams entered the final round with promotion hopes. Hannover was on course to finish third when leading Nuremberg 3-2, but Luka Lochoshvili scored late for the visitors, allowing Paderborn to leapfrog Hannover into third place with a 2-0 win at Darmstadt.
Paderborn now faces Wolfsburg in a two-leg playoff for the final Bundesliga spot. Wolfsburg finished third from bottom and hosts the first leg on Thursday.
The Table Looks Different
"We're all a bit speechless," Hannover captain Enzo Leopold said.
Schalke signed off by winning 1-0 over Eintracht Braunschweig. Fortuna Düsseldorf was relegated after a 3-0 loss at Greuther Fürth, with Fürth passing Düsseldorf on goal difference to claim the relegation playoff place. Braunschweig finished above Fürth on goal difference and stays up.