What The Stats Tell Us: Relegation play-off in Germany

By Jussi-Pekka Rode

In football there are some mistakes that cost you a whole season. The margins are small, each time you make a mistake it can be a fateful one. Of course, one could argue, over a season mistakes or even bad luck can be balanced out, and in some ways that is true, but fortune still plays a bigger role than we might think. In this article I try to analyse the relegation play-off system in Germany to find out how fair or unfair it is for the teams who have to take part in it.

Background and history 

Every year in a two-leg play-off round it is decided who avoids relegation or gets promoted to the higher league. The current relegation system is not totally new for the Bundesliga. A similar relegation system was used in the years 1981-1991. After the creation of a single-division 2. Bundesliga in 1981, a promotion round was played between the third-placed 2. Bundesliga club and the 16th placed club from the 1. Bundesliga. A home-and-away round was played to decide who gets the last spot in the Bundesliga. This system was played until 1991. Between 1991 and 2008 no play-off rounds were played in the top leagues in Germany. 

Everything changed in the 2008/2009 season. Two 3th level Regionalligas were submerged together creating a whole new league, 3. Liga. With the creation of the 3. Liga, the Bundesliga returned to the system used in the years 1981-1991. A promotion round between the 3th placed 2. Bundesliga club and the 16th placed 1.Bundesliga club was played again. In addition, a promotion round was introduced also for the 3. Liga.

2.Bundesliga clubs now also faced the joy of playing relegation play-off rounds to either gain promotion to the top flight or to avoid getting relegated to the 3. Liga: the 16th placed 2.Bundesliga club plays against the 3th placed 3.Liga club. For 3. Liga clubs it is no picnic either. In a league with 20 teams, only two teams get promoted directly (with two 2. Bundesliga clubs directly relegated) and four clubs in the bottom get directly relegated. 

The play-off round includes a home and away game for each team. If the clubs are level, the away-goal rule is applied. If the clubs are still level, there will be extra-time and, if necessary, a penalty shoot-out. 

Results 

The current system has been in place for over 10 seasons and more. Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga clubs have faced each other in the modern relegation play-off modus 11 times. Only three times a club from the lower league has won the promotion. 1.FC Nürnberg in 2009, Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2012 and, the latest club, Union Berlin in 2019. Putting together the home and away matches, 10 from 22 games were won by the 1. Bundesliga club in a 90 minute game, nine games ended in a draw and in only three games the winner was a club from the 2. Bundesliga – two of those wins achieved by Nürnberg in 2009.

Looking at the results, the relegation system seems unfair for the 2. Bundesliga clubs. Strangely enough, the 2. Bundesliga clubs have not done well against their opponents from the 3.Liga. From 11 rounds they have lost eight. In 22 games a 2. Bundesliga club has won only five times, seven matches have ended in a draw and ten times the winner has been a 3.Liga club. 

Looking at results we see the fact that 2. Bundesliga clubs have not done well in the relegation play-off modus. Putting together 22 play-off rounds either to gain promotion or avoid relegation, the 2. Bundesliga clubs have landed on the top only six times. 2.Bundesliga is often referred as a league between heaven and hell. Looking at the relegation play-off results, this seems to be surely the case.

Expected Goals analysis

In the end, in football, results really do not matter. This may sound a bit strange, but looking at results only, we often do not see who was the best team. Being a low-scoring game, in football luck plays a bigger role than in most other sports. The CEO of Global Soccer Network Dustin Böttger has said that chance plays a 40% role in football. So instead, we should try to measure performances if we want to find out who was the better team. That does not change the outcome, but might offer some comfort for the unlucky loser. 

I have looked at the expected goals data of German relegation play-off matches since the season 2015/16. Unfortunately, my database, Wyscout, does not offer any data before that. Still, it gives us interesting details about the performance of the clubs. First let us look how the expected Goals (xG) summary looks like. In 7 of the 8 relegation matches between 1. Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga clubs the top flight club was better measured in expected goals. In total the Expected Goals difference was +4.58 xG for the top flight clubs. 

In the matches between 2. Bundesliga and 3.Liga clubs we see a totally different picture. In 3 of the 8 relegation matches a 2. Bundesliga club has been the better team according to the Expected Goals metric. In total the underdogs from the 3. Liga have a better xG difference by a small margin, +0.82 xG. In the last relegation play-off round in 2019 between 3. Liga club Wehen Wiesbaden and 2.Bundesliga club FC Ingolstadt, the 2.Bundesliga club had a better expected Goals result in both the home and away matches by a total margin of +1.49 xG. In the end we can say Wiesbaden got very lucky winning promotion against Ingolstadt. 

Expected Points analysis

So far, the Expected Goals metric has mostly underlined the results we have seen. We can also analyse the matches using the Expected Points (xPts) metric. First, I have looked at the final xPts ranking in their season. With this I tried to find out how they should have been placed in the end table according to their performance. 

For example, 1. Bundesliga club Vfl Wolfsburg played in the relegation round 2017 against my club Eintracht Braunschweig, after being only 16th in the Bundesliga. However, they had only bad luck that season. Their performance according to expected Points suggested they should have been 10th-placed, well clear of relegation. On the other hand, Braunschweig were overachieving, they should only have been 9th in the 2. Bundesliga. According to performance data from that season, the relegation round between these two local rivals should never have taken place. 

Ranking alone does not give us the answers we need, so I decided to look at every team according to their ranking and the Expected Goals Difference (xGD). Here we can see the rankings from Vfl Wolfsburg in the 2016/17 season. They also had a decent xGD-difference. On the other hand, in other seasons, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Vfl Wolfsburg in the 2017/18 season had to deal with a much harder challenge. Their performance in the Bundesliga indicated it was not only bad luck, it was also a lack of quality. As proof we can see low ranking (xPts) in the league and a bad Expected Goals Difference.

Looking at the 2. Bundesliga clubs we see also a interesting story. Holstein Kiel and Union Berlin clearly deserved to be in a relegation play-off spot or better. Also, Erzgebirge Aue and MSV Duisburg were about there were they should be in their seasons, fighting against relegation. However, teams such as aforementioned Braunschweig but also Ingolstadt and 1860 Munich should not have been playing in a relegation play-off round. Braunschweig got lucky and Ingolstadt and Munich very unlucky and, in the end, had to go down. Munich went straight away one league deeper to the Regionalliga level because of money problems.

We also see in the next graphics that 2. Bundesliga clubs had to play against very hard opponents from the 3. Liga. 3 of the 4 teams gaining the play-off spot were performance-wise the best teams in the league. Only Karlsruhe weren’t and they were the only team from the last four rounds not to get promoted. Still, we need to see more relegation matches to see if these results are only random or if we can see a pattern here. However, I am comfortable to say that I find the relegation play-off system unfair and would rather see a direct promotion or relegation taking place, epecially for the 2. Bundesliga teams the system seems to be unfair and for the 1. Bundesliga clubs the play-off round is just too easy.

Conclusion

The German system of playing a relegation play-off round with two games between teams who are not in the same league, is not fair for many of the clubs. It often does not reflect the real performance of the teams over the course of the season and puts many in a difficult position. The play-off system seems to be especially difficult for the 2. Bundesliga clubs. They struggle to gain promotion and yet have difficulties avoiding relegation if facing a 3. Liga team in the play-offs.

You can read more from JP on his blog Blau-Gelbe Datenwelt or follow him on Twitter.

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