PADERBORN, Germany (AP) — Christian Eriksen and Wolfsburg were relegated from the Bundesliga on Monday after losing at Paderborn 2-1 in the second leg of their end-of-season playoff to determine which plays in Germany’s top division next season.
Laurin Curda scored Paderborn’s promotion-clinching goal in the 10th minute of extra time after Wolfsburg played all but the first 13 minutes with 10 players.
It gave Paderborn, which finished third in the second division, a 2-1 win on aggregate after the teams drew 0-0 in the first leg of their playoff in Wolfsburg on Thursday.
“I could only cry, I couldn’t get my emotions under control at all,” Paderborn midfielder Ruben Müller said of the club’s third promotion to the Bundesliga.
“Indescribable, it’s unbelievable what’s happened here,” said Paderborn goalkeeper Dennis Seimen, who made two late saves to preserve the win.
It’s Wolfsburg’s first relegation since the Volkswagen-backed club was promoted to the Bundesliga in 1997. Wolfsburg won the championship in 2009 but has struggled in recent seasons. It survived playoff deciders against Eintracht Braunschweig in 2017 and Holstein Kiel the following year and was forced into another showdown for survival this season after again finishing third from bottom.
It marks the end of a bitterly disappointing season for Eriksen, the Denmark star who signed a two-year deal when he joined Wolfsburg in September. Eriksen captained the side in Paderborn and received commiserations from opposing players before jubilant home supporters stormed the field to celebrate.
Some Paderborn fans used their plastic beer cups to dig up clumps of grass from the field to take home, while the beer-soaked players danced and sang.
Dženan Pejčinović got Wolfsburg off to a great start in the third minute, but Joakim Mæhle was sent off in the 14th with his second yellow card for a foul on Mattes Hansen, just minutes after he got his first for pushing Filip Bilbija over for flicking the ball away.
“He feels just as bad,” Wolfsburg winger Patrick Wimmer said of Mæhle. “He knows what happened probably shouldn’t have happened. But I don’t think the whole team should be ganging up on Joakim. He’s had a fantastic season since coming back from his shoulder injury and done a great job. He was maybe a bit unlucky today but generally you can see the whole team is lacking in energy.”
The sending off arguably changed the course of the game with only Paderborn pushing forward. Bilbija duly equalized in the 39th with a diving header to Calvin Brackelmann’s header on from a long throw-in.
Sebastian Klaas struck the post around the hour mark and Curda finally made Paderborn’s pressure count when Wolfsburg’s defense left him free at the back post to rifle in substitute Sven Michel’s cross.
Paderborn, a city to the east of Dortmund in the west German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, also earned promotion in 2014 and 2019. Its Bundesliga appearances were brief after finishing last both seasons.
“We were promoted twice before but we haven’t stayed up, yet. We have to make sure we make good decisions this summer,” Paderborn coach Ralf Kettemann said.
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