The head coach on the game: "We saw last week at Stuttgart how the opponent can fight to get points in the battle against relegation. It was a men's game and I can well imagine that attitude will again be present against Nürnberg tomorrow. I think it will be another man's game," said Peter Bosz in expectation of a hard-fought battle against an opponent who "wants to play football in spite of their position in the table." The fact FCN have not lost in their last three games shows that the visitors have not given up and they believe they can stay up with five games to play till the end of the season – despite being nine points away from safety. Accordingly, the 55-year-old coach warned against underestimating the Franconians: "There are no easy opponents in the Bundesliga and that includes Nürnberg." The Werkself head coach also emphasised that the outcome of the game against the side next to bottom is of great importance in view of the club's own targets: "It doesn't help us at all talking about qualifying for Europe. We can only be successful – whatever position we ultimately end up in – if we win the game against Nürnberg. And we have to be fully focused on that."
The squad: After Lars Bender failed to make the squad for the match against VfB Stuttgart after recovering from thigh injury, the captain could well be an option for the Nürnberg game. "Lars is in good shape and he's trained the whole week," said Peter Bosz. In addition to long-term injuries Karim Bellarabi and Joel Pohjanpalo, he will have to make do without Panos Retsos for the game against Nürnberg. The Werkself coach explained the 20-year-old received a kick to his little toe that rules him out this weekend.
The referee: The game on Easter Saturday will be refereed by Guido Winkmann. 15 of his previous 134 Bundesliga games have involved Bayer 04 and this season the 45-year-old from Kerken has only seen the Werkself off the pitch to date. The assistants for the policeman at the BayArena will be Christian Bandurski and Arno Blos, and Patrick Alt is the fourth official. The video referees are Tobias Stieler and Alexander Sather.
The previous encounter: The Werkself were twelfth in the Bundesliga when they travelled to Franconia at the end of matchday 13. The newcomers from Nuremberg were four points behind the Black and Reds in fifteenth position at the time and a win for the team under former coach Heiko Herrlich would have put the Werkself back in contact with the top third of the table. But that's not what happened. Due to a heavy rain shower the pitch at the Max Morlock Stadium was drenched making conditions extremely difficult for both teams: Accurate passing was mostly impossible on that Monday night and that meant most of the action on the pitch was influenced by chance. Nevertheless, the Werkself did slightly better in dealing with the conditions, creating chances and at the half-hour mark a technically high-quality goal from Kai Havertz provided a deserved 1-0 lead. However, the visitors failed to extend their lead before and after the half-time break. Instead the defensively focused Franconian's levelled the scores on 57 minutes from a corner. Dominik Kohr was unlucky to deflect a shot from Nürnberg's Georg Margreitter into his own net. The Werkself continued to press for a second goal but found it difficult on the increasingly unpredictable pitch and in the end had to settle for a disappointing 1-1 draw.
