Berlin (AFP) – Hamburg, the only club to have played every Bundesliga season, stumbled closer to a historic relegation when they crashed 3-0 at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday.
On the penultimate day of the season, Marius Wolf and Omar Mascarell netted for the home team before Frankfurt’s ex-captain Alexander Meier, the league’s top-scorer in 2014/15, came off the bench for his first appearance this season to hit the third goal on 90 minutes and delight home fans.
Hamburg are 17th in the 18-team Bundesliga and, with one round of games to play, they cannot catch Freiburg in 15th, the lowest place that guarantees safety, but there is an another escape route, one they have used before.
Hamburg must beat mid-table Borussia Moenchengladbach next Saturday, and hope Wolfsburg, who are two points above them in 16th, lose at home to last-place Cologne.
That would lift Hamburg to 16th and into a relegation play-off against the third best team in the second tier.
In 2015 and 2016 Hamburg, who have been in the Bundesliga since the division was created in 1963, won the two-leg playoff to survive.
Wolfsburg missed the chance to put a safe gap between themselves and Hamburg, when they lost 4-1 away to RB Leipzig, who broke their five-game winless streak.
The post Hamburg teeter close to first ever Bundesliga relegation appeared first on World Soccer Talk.
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