1.FC Nürnberg - VfL Bochum

This match took place several times in 1.Bundesliga but also sometimes in 2.Bundesliga. It looks like that both teams meet each other in next season again. Nürnberg can with a win close the gap a bit to the top teams but with 8 Points behind then they are far away from promotion battle as only 8 Rounds remaining. On the other side comes Bochum to Nürnberg with Coach Verbeek who was former Nürnberg Coach in BL and he wants revenge for some statements and his knock out there. With a win Bochum can move away from the red zone and with 11 Points ahead they are far away from trouble in the last remaining games.

Despite two defeats (Heidenheim 0-1 and Kaiserslautern 1-2) in a row Coach Weiler wants to count on the same starting lineup as in the past. The only change is in midfield maybe where captain Polak is back from suspension and he starts for sure today. Also the system can be changed from 4-1-4-1 to 4-2-3-1 where Polak and Petrak play in central midfield. For this reason one offensive player must on bench, what speaks against Koch. According to the last game is Blum not available after he got injured against Kaiserslautern and the time was to less to be ready. For the next player Füllkrug is the season gone, he is out long term now. This can be the next chance for youngster Kerk but he could not convince too. An option can be Mlapa here too but they do not count on him anymore according to news and he must leave the club after the season. New winter signing Nikci is far away to start and he has to work on his fitness but for some minutes he are ready, therefore on bench today.

   

For Bochum’s Coach Verbeek is this match a special one as mentioned above. After the very good performance from last weekend and the high win against Heidenheim he wants to leave his starting lineup unchanged. But one change is a must because Perthel got injured and is out for some weeks now. Therefore it can be a small problem for Coach Verbeek to field the right one, Perthel’s replacement Holthause is not ready yet after injury what put youngster Abdat in a good position but he is more or less very unexperienced and has not match praxis in 2.BL so far. One of their in form and key players is Sestak who socred 4 goals in the last 2 games and they hope that he continue like this today.