After 7 Years In The Second Division, Hamburg Return To The Bundesliga

Hamburger SV players and fans celebrate the club's return to the Bundesliga (Photo by Marcus ... More Brandt/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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After seven years in the 2. Bundesliga wilderness, the suffering is finally over for Hamburger SV fans. On Saturday, Die Rothosen secured their promotion back to the Bundesliga with a 6-1 win over SSV Ulm, who are now relegated to the 3. Liga with that result.
In typical fashion, however, Hamburg didn’t take the easy route to beat struggling Ulm. Die Spatzen opened the scoring early, with Tom Gaal scoring seven minutes in. Three minutes later, HSV was level with Ludovit Reis scoring.
Then, in the 35th minute, Ulm was awarded a penalty after a lengthy VAR review. It was a questionable call, and perhaps justice was served when Daniel Heuer Fernandes stopped Semir Telalovic’s attempt.
In retrospect, that missed penalty turned around the momentum in Hamburg’s advantage. First, Ransford-Yeboah Königsdorffer made it 2-1 (42’), and then Davie Selke made it 3-1 just before halftime. Then, four minutes into the second half, the game was over when Ulm’s Philipp Strompf scored an own goal to make it 4-1 for HSV.
From then on, the party was truly on for most of the 57,000 spectators at the Volksparkstadion. That party only got further elevated when Königsdorffer completed his brace to make it 5-1 for Die Rothosen, and then in the 86th minute, Daniel Elfadli made it 6-1.