Nurnberg Net a Nice Win

With Nurnberg sitting very close to relegation, I keep looking at the remaining fixtures to forecast which matches Der Club will win, lose, or draw. Yesterday’s match against Schalke, sitting third in the league, was written off as a loss in my predictions. I figured their great striking duo of Raul and Huntelaar would be too much for Nurnberg’s defense, just as they have been for other defenses this season. Well, it’s good to be proven wrong sometimes – and man was I.

As all weekday matches always are, this match took place while I was at work. I wasn’t able to peek at the score until the 55^th minute. When I did see the score – a surprising 3-0 lead for Nurnberg at that point – I let out a flabbergasted exclamation of “holy hell!”, one that was probably much too loud for the office. All three of those goals were scored in the first half as well. Hanno Balitsch scored with a header in the 25^th minute, Timmy Simons converted a penalty in the 37^th, and Daniel Didavi header just before halftime. Der Club were on their way to not only a win, but a smashing win over a high-ranking opponent.

The match was quieter in the second half, but Schalke did manage to pull one back. It took awhile but Schalke got one past Nurnberg keeper Raphael Schaefer in the 85^th minute, much too late for a comeback to be possible. Nurnberg’s Daniel Didavi even went further to stamp out any miracle comeback thoughts from Schalke by scoring his second for Nurnberg just two minutes later in the 87^th minute, scoring on a long free kick from outside the box. That put the finishing stamp on the match, giving Nurnberg the 4-1 victory over Schalke.

Nurnberg didn’t move from their 12^th spot in the league table, even with the great win. However, they did gain points to move further away from relegation. They now are six points away from the 16^th relegation playoff spot. This enormous win over Schalke might be the turning point in the last bit of the season. I’m not taking anything for granted yet, but it looks very promising for Der Club to fight off being relegated. With the final four matches of the season to play, they fortunately have a relative easy set of matches. They play Kaiserslautern who are currently 18^th (last place), Hamburg currently in 14^th place, Hoffenheim currently in 9^th, and Bayer Leverkusen now sitting in 6^th. Nurnberg was able to notch a surprise win earlier in the year against the highest placed of those teams in Leverkusen, so that makes it the outlook even more promising.