Top and bottom, the 3.Liga remains exciting!

The heat of the relegation battle just got turned up another notch. Midweek the DFB announced penalties for Kickers Offenbach and Alemannia Aachen. Both clubs had presented “dubious” financial statements to the DFB financial governing board, or at least were late in getting their euros in order. So the federation has penalized them two points apiece, dropping them further down the table. Aachen of course is facing insolvency, and will likely restart in the Regionalliga, although their is a slight chance that they might ward off that automatic relegation.

Obviously this turned out to be great news for suffering Darmstadt. The 98ers hosted powerful Osnabrück, and certainly another loss was penciled in. However perhaps lifted by events, the home side came out strong, and VfL really looked lame and without ideas. In a match were they showed heretofore unexhibited spirit, Darmstadt got the win which indicates that they are serious about staving off relegation. Osnabrück suffers a serious blow to their promotion hopes, although they remain in a dogfight, their rivals have a game in hand.

Despite the bad news, Aachen actually was giving hosts Preußen Münster fits early on. They were counterattacking well and looked respectable. But then Kefkir ruined it by getting his ass tossed, and soon Münster seized control. Although Alemannia did valiantly fight back, they eventually got rolled.

Kickers Offenbach showed some rare fight (in the league, they’ve shown a lot in the Cup) and came away with a hard-fought victory at Stuttgart in the Battle of the Kickers. This was a critical match for both relegation threatened clubs, but the Offenbach side gets the points for a little breathing room.

Arminia Bielefeld showed only minimal demonstration of a potential 2.Liga squad, but they did enough when it counted to come away with a win at Chemnitz. Like Preußen Münster, they now leapfrog Osnabrück into a promotion spot.

Heidenheim keeps their promotion hopes alive with a hard fought win over Burghausen. The visitors ended up shooting themselves in the foot when Mokhtari got double carrded out after an hour, allowing FCH to safely steer home the match.

Total attendance this weekend was 36,860 (avg 5,266)

SpVgg Unterhaching    -   1. FC Saarbrücken	0:0 (0:0)    1,150
1. FC Heidenheim      -   Wacker Burghausen	2:1 (1:1)    7,300
SV Darmstadt 98	      -   VfL Osnabrück	        1:0 (0:0)    4,800
Hansa Rostock	      -   VfB Stuttgart II	0:0 (0:0)    7,300
Stuttgarter Kickers   -   Kickers Offenbach	0:2 (0:1)    3,500
Preußen Münster	      -   Alemannia Aachen	4:1 (1:0)    8,060
Chemnitzer FC	      -   Arminia Bielefeld	0:1 (0:0)    4,750
SV Wehen Wiesbaden    -   Hallescher FC         canceled
Rot-Weiß Erfurt	      -   Karlsruher SC	        canceled
SV Babelsberg 03      -   Borussia Dortmund II	canceled 



 1  Karlsruher SC (A)	  	29    17   9 	3      51:18  +33     60 
 2  Arminia Bielefeld	  	29    17   8 	4      49:25  +24     59
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  Preußen Münster	  	29    16   9 	4      51:23  +28     57
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4  VfL Osnabrück	  	30    17   6 	7      48:26  +22     57 
 5  1. FC Heidenheim	  	30    17   5 	8      57:41  +16     56 
 6  SpVgg Unterhaching	  	30    12   8 	10     40:40   0      44 
 7  Chemnitzer FC	  	29    11   8 	10     39:36  +3      41 
 8  Hallescher FC (N)	  	29    10   7 	12     30:38  -8      37 
 9  SV Wehen Wiesbaden	  	29     6   17 	6      34:36  -2      35 
10  Wacker Burghausen	  	28    10   5 	13     34:39  -5      35 
11  VfB Stuttgart II	  	27     9   7 	11     28:31  -3      34 
12  1. FC Saarbrücken	  	30     9   7 	14     39:49  -10     34 
13  Hansa Rostock (A)	  	28     9   6 	13     26:38  -12     33 
14  Kickers Offenbach	  	28     9   6 	13     37:37   0      31 
15  Rot-Weiß Erfurt	  	26     7   7 	12     30:44  -14     28 
16  Stuttgarter Kickers (N)	28     7   6 	15     28:37  -9      27 
17  SV Darmstadt 98	  	28     6   9 	13     23:38  -15     27
------------------------------------------------------------------------
18  SV Babelsberg 03	  	27     7   6 	14     21:36  -15     27 
19  Alemannia Aachen (A)	28     6   9 	13     28:42  -14     25 
20  Borussia Dortmund II (N)	26     5   9 	12     26:45  -19     24


A = Absteiger just Relegated 
N = Neuling just promoted

1st line: Promotion to 2.Liga
2nd line: Promotion Playoff with 2.Liga 16th place
3rd line: Relegation to Regionalliga

Aachen and Offenbach deducted two points for financial shenanigans
Aachen is also basically relegated due to pending insolvency.