ELVERSBERG, Germany (AP) \u2014 Schalke became Germany\u2019s second division champion, a day after it clinched promotion back to the Bundesliga, thanks to other results in the league on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Paderborn, which had been second, nine points behind Schalke, slumped to a 5-1 loss at Elversberg.<\/p>\n
Elversberg capitalized on third-place Hannover\u2019s dramatic 3-3 draw with last-place Preu\u00dfen M\u00fcnster and moved second, eight points behind Schalke with two rounds remaining.<\/p>\n
It means Schalke is certain to finish top of the division even if it loses its remaining games against Nuremberg and Eintracht Braunschweig.<\/p>\n
Schalke clinched promotion back to the Bundesliga after a three-year absence on Saturday with a 1-0 win at home over Fortuna D\u00fcsseldorf.<\/p>\n
Elversberg is best-placed to join it in the top division. The top two are promoted automatically, while the third-placed team faces a two-leg play off against the team that finishes third from bottom in the Bundesliga to determine which plays in the first division next season.<\/p>\n
With two rounds remaining, Schalke had 67 points, ahead of Elversberg on 59, with Hannover and Paderborn both on 58 points. Hannover had the better goal difference. Fifth-place Darmstadt (51 points) can no longer catch the top four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ELVERSBERG, Germany (AP) \u2014 Schalke became Germany\u2019s second division champion, a day after it clinched promotion back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,9247,640,799,795,796,797,9246],"class_list":{"0":"post-10120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-germany","9":"tag-hannover","10":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","11":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","12":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","13":"tag-product-32554-ap-online-soccer-game-stories","14":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","15":"tag-schalke-elversberg-hannover-paderborn-promotion-germany"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}