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Eintracht Frankfurt defended their place in the Bundesliga next season with a 1-0 win over Nurnberg, who lost their first of three playoffs and will spend next season once again in the 2. Bundesliga. Haris Seferovic scored the only goal of the game midway through the second half to give Niko Kovac's Eagles a 2-1 aggregate win and ensure for the sixth time in eight editions of the playoff, the top-flight team salvaged their status. Like in the first leg, which ended 1-1, Frankfurt were the side asking all of the questions with Nurnberg goalkeeper Rafael Schafer again in for a busy night. His defence prevented him from having too much to do in the first half, though, as they soaked up the pressure well and limited the guests to shots from distance, such as Seferovic's in the 34th minute which Schafer clutched at the second time of asking. He was not able to hold Seferovic's shot deep in stoppage time either, but Georg Margreitter got in before Mijat Gacinovic could turn in the rebound. As the clock ticked down, Frankfurt appeared to be losing belief that they would ever find a big enough gap in the Nurnberg defence, but Seferovic finally made the breakthrough in the 66th minute when he turned in Mijat Gacinovic's cross as Nurnberg's defence crucially lost their organisation for the first time all night. It was a costly lapse and Nurnberg's half-hearted attempts to find an equaliser, which would have forced extra-time, did not even result in a shot on Lukas Hradecky's goal. Frankfurt therefore held on to victory and their place in the Bundesliga next season.
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SGE
