Bundesliga playoff: Fortuna Dusseldorf 2 Hertha Berlin 2 (Agg 4-3)

Fortuna Dusseldorf have been promoted to the Bundesliga after their playoff win over Hertha Berlin on Tuesday.

Dusseldorf took the honours in an ill-tempered second leg that saw flares thrown and a pitch invasion, wrapping up a 4-3 aggregate win over two legs with a 2-2 home draw.

Hertha Berlin were relegated to the second division with the capital reduced to a 10 men shortly before the hour mark when Anis Ben-Hatira was sent off for a second yellow.

The hosts, who scored two second-half goals in the first leg to stun Hertha, soon took a 3-1 aggregate lead when Maximilian Beister scored from 20 yards in the first minute.

Hertha equalised when Ben-Hatira headed in Ronny’s free kick and were later made to pay for several missed chances before the break.

Ben-Hatira was sent off soon after the resumption for a second booking and when Ranisav Jovanovic headed in off the post for Dusseldorf minutes later, the tie looked dead and buried.

Raffael sparked hope for Hertha with a thunderous shot to equalise five minutes from time but they were unable to get the third goal needed, either side of a 30-minute interruption in injury time as Dusseldorf fans poured onto the pitch.

It is the second relegation in three years for Berlin which is the only major European capital city without a top division football team.

Eintracht Frankfurt and Greuther Fuerth had already won automatic promotion to the Bundesliga while Kaiserslautern and Cologne were relegated as the bottom two.