Wanted: real contenders

The job application form for Europa League qualification from the Bundesliga would not be very long at the moment.

Wanted: Top flight German team(s) boasting lofty ambitions and halfway decent late-season form. No prior experience required, strike force desirable but not necessary. Eight-figure financial rewards potentially available. Candidates should enjoy travel and be prepared to put in extra evening hours midweek. Due to regrettably limited interest, qualification requirements were recently revised downwards. Posts must be filled before June 2013, come and claim this exciting challenge!

It's hard to point to a single team from fourth-placed Eintracht Frankfurt onwards who currently come close to fitting even this modest bill. With just 10 points between Frankfurt and Werder Bremen all the way down in 14th, the pool of potential candidates remains vast.

Of the most serious aspirants between fourth and 10th, only Borussia Mönchengladbach managed a win this past weekend - moving up to seventh place in the process.

With a week off during the last international break of the season ahead of them, Germany's European hopefuls have one more chance to rest and prepare for the home stretch. Here's a run through some of the key players, and their various deficiencies.

Toothless Frankfurt

Newly-promoted Frankfurt lived on midfield production during their Cinderella start to the season, with hardly any goals hailing from their strike force. Now that even big Alex Meier's gone cold, the side would struggle to find the net in a fishing boat.

Frankfurt at least broke a goal drought lasting more than 500 minutes (since their last win on February 2) on Sunday but then they proceeded to lose 2-1 against Stuttgart - the final German team to drop out of this season's Europa League last week.

Despite going six consecutive games without a win, Frankfurt remain fourth in the table - the trailing sides' fortunes help explain why.

Shaky Schalke

Interim coach Jens Keller has just about righted the Schalke ship after the side's Champions League ambitions seemed to sink in the run-up to Christmas.

But the Royal Blues couldn't build on their derby win against Dortmund this past weekend - instead losing 3-0 to Nuremberg despite dominating much of the game. Given Frankfurt's Sunday flop, just a draw would have been enough to lift Schalke back into fourth place - with a chance even at returning to the Champions League next season.

It's typical of Schalke's season so far that they managed to follow a mini-revival of three straight league wins with elimination from the Champions League on home turf and then the Nuremberg disappointment.

Mystery Mainz

Thomas Tuchel and his players at Mainz have won just one of their last seven Bundesliga games - drawing five of them - and yet this "form" has proved enough to preserve sixth place in the league.

An apparent inability to finish off smaller opponents could blight Mainz's charge when it matters most. That one recent win came against third-placed Bayer Leverkusen, but Mainz couldn't topple 10-man Wolfsburg at home or underfunded Düsseldorf away. It was just the same story on Saturday, when Mainz couldn't score away to lowly Hoffenheim.

Despite hitman Adam Szalai's 12 goals, Mainz struggle to score consistently and perhaps rely too heavily on their defense, the second-best in the all the Bundesliga.

The Gladbach sleeping pill

Seventh-placed Gladbach's form is pretty consistent, as it has been all season - consistently mediocre.

Coach Lucien Favre's side, readjusting without last year's stars Marco Reus, Dante and Roman Neustädter, has scored 35 and conceded 35. A neutral goal difference is an apt description of the team this year.

In Sunday evening's 1-0 win over Hannover, Gladbach had more of the ball but fewer shots. That's by no means a rarity this season; the team that turned heads with its lightning counterattacks last season is now trying to adopt a more controlling style. For now, though, the "Foals" don't have enough stars to consistently add potency to their possession.

Hamburg: Pinball wizards

Gladbach and Hamburg may be equal on points but their respective stories could scarcely be more different.

After losing three league games on the bounce - also falling to semi-professional opposition in the first round of the German Cup to complete the catastrophe - at the start of the season, Hamburg then rallied with a home win over champions Borussia Dortmund.

This upset jolted the side, led by keeper Rene Adler, poacher Artjoms Rudnevs, old flame Rafael van der Vaart and others, back into positive form. They largely stayed on the upswing until a narrow mid-February win over Gladbach - but have won just one of their last four since then. And that includes a draw to bottom-of-the-league Greuther Fürth and this weekend's defeat to in-form Augsburg.

The schedule isn't offering much hope either. Hamburg travel to the Allianzarena to play Bayern Munich next, and after that potentially demoralizing game, they'll face fellow European hopefuls Mainz, and then Freiburg.

Threadbare Freiburg

Coach Christian Streich told local SWR public radio at the weekend that he was looking forward to the international break, as it would let his slim-line squad rest. Freiburg's success is predicated around arguably the finest work ethic in German football, and Streich suspected it had taken its toll when Borussia Dortmund smashed five past his side on Saturday. Wolfsburg had hit five in Freiburg one week earlier.

Streich's team has not won a match since its midweek German Cup quarterfinal triumph over Mainz late in February - a strenuous extra time turnaround that put Freiburg into the semifinals for the first time ever. In the league, they have won just two of their last nine.

Like Frankfurt, Freiburg prefer to do their damage without a genuine strike force to speak of. With 33 goals scored, only hot-and-cold Hamburg have a better league record and fewer goals than Freiburg. Holding on to stars like Max Kruse, Jonathan Schmid, Fallou Diagne and Oliver Baumann would be essential for the side to compete on the continent. Indeed, a few new additions wouldn't go amiss.

Dark horses still in catching distance

Those six sides are currently separated by just three league points. Any of them could theoretically sit in fourth place two weeks from now.

There are six more teams that might still have an outside chance: Hannover, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen and Düsseldorf - all of whom are nine points or less adrift of Mainz in the last Europa League qualifying position.

The fast mover in that trailing pack is 11th-placed Nuremberg. Had the season started after the winter break, Michael Wiesinger's side would sit fourth in the table, behind only Bayern, Dortmund and - believe it or not - relegation-threatened Augsburg.