Eintracht Braunschweig - Fortuna Düsseldorf

The second half of the season starts today with the top match in 2.BL between two promotion candidates Braunschweig and Düsseldorf. After 17 Rounds are played both teams has not disappointed the experts and they are close to the top and with a good second half of the season they can still climb up and dream to get promoted. To begin it was hard for Braunschweig and they lost a lot of ground to the top but with a winning streak from 5 matches with 5 wins they were on 2nd place but fall down after they got only 1 Point from the last two. They are now 2 Points behind 3rd place and this is nothing in this close league and should not be a problem at all but they have to come back on track now. On the other side was Düsseldorf very close to the leader Ingolstadt but they has a three match run where they collected only 1 Point and this put them out of the top 3. After this they start winning again at the weekend in Frankfurt with a 2-0. They have one Point more on their side as Braunschweig but they are close to the top 3 anyway.

Braunschweig's Coach searched long time for the right lineup and balance, he has found it in recent matches but he changed in last game against Union in central midfield where Pfitzner played instead of Theuerkauf. It is more as possible that he change back to normal lineup and let all the same as to the winning times. Also in offensive no changes expected but Nielsen had a few weak matches recently and the alternatives are there with Kruppke, Bakenga or Hochscheidt who is back after a long injury time. If they can bring their home strength on the pitch today it is hard to beat them but Düsseldorf is one of the best away team and this makes it so dangerous.

After the win against FSV Coach Reck plans no important changes before this encounter today. This means that he trusts the starting lineup from weekend again. Before the game against FSV he made some changes and move Liendl from the wing into the middle where he played much better as in the past and it was maybe a key fact. Also a good sign was that Pohjanpalo was out for the match in Frankfurt what let Benschop move forward in central attack where he had a good performance. But the most important fact was the return from central midfield player Pinto who gave Fortuna more structure and he was the man in midfield for the speed and passing in their game.