Relegation Playoff

Derided by many as a gimmick intended to squeeze a last few euros from fans, the relegation playoff was in fact once a fixture in the Bundesliga calendar. So when Cottbus meet Nuremberg for a home-and-away tie this Thursday and Sunday, they'll be following in a tradition with no shortage of curiosities.

The Bundesliga introduced the relegation playoff with the creation of the unified second division in 1981-82 – before then there were a number of competing regional leagues.

The first ever such tie featured Bayer Leverkusen against Kickers Offenbach and showed how influential the results could be to the further development of the clubs concerned.

Leverkusen stayed in the first division thanks to a 3-1 win on aggregate and established themselves as one of the Bundesliga's top clubs. Offenbach, who had twice been the second-best team in Germany, never again came within sniffing distance of the top flight and are currently languishing in division three.

Schalke's dark hour

First division sides generally dominated the playoffs, but there were some upsets.

The biggest came in 1982-83 when Bayer Uerdingen (currently in the fifth division) toppled Schalke 4-2. Even mentioning the year 1983 remains a serious taboo in Gelsenkirchen.

1986 saw the wildest playoff. Heavily favored Dortmund lost its opening match 2-0 to second-division Fortuna Cologne and struggled to equalize on aggregate in the return game.

The tie went to an all-deciding third match, and Dortmund clearly decided enough was enough. They thrashed Fortuna 8-0 – the most lopsided scoreline in relegation history.

Cottbus and Nuremberg will be spared that sort of scenario, but they could be faced with football's ultimate test of nerves. If the aggregate score is tied, the away-goals rule applies, and if neither team has an advantage in that category, there will be a penalty shoot-out.

East versus West

It's slightly ironic that Cottbus – the only remaining eastern German club in the first division – should be involved in the revival of the relegation playoff since it was the reunification of Germany that killed off this peculiar Bundesliga institution in the first place.

For the 1991-92 season, the first division was expanded to 20 teams in order to incorporate two teams from the former East Germany, Hansa Rostock and Dynamo Dresden. To get back down to the customary 18, four teams were relegated that year, rendering a playoff senseless.

In the intervening 17 years, eastern German clubs have found life very difficult – with Cottbus and Rostock bobbing up and down between divisions one and two, and Dresden descending into financial chaos and, ultimately, the third division.

So Cottbus will be playing for the footballing pride of an entire region – and they'll be thankful that the German Football League, the DFL, decided to remove the playoff from the mothballs.

Under last season's rules, sixteenth-placed Cottbus would have been automatically relegated, and eastern Germany would once again have been without a team in the country's elite league.

Author: Jefferson Chase

Editor: Chuck Penfold