Europe's best title race? The 'chaos' of 2. Bundesliga

Koln are top of the German second division after winning their past three league games

"It's chaos," says German football journalist Mark Lovell, when asked to describe the 2. Bundesliga title race this season - and he is right.

With 13 games remaining in this campaign, the battle for the two automatic promotion places - plus the single play-off spot against the 16th-placed Bundesliga side - in the German second tier is the most engrossing race in European football this season.

Just six points separate the top six after 21 matches, with 10 points between the top 10 in the 18-team league. Seven sides have led the division and more than a quarter of games have ended in draws.

The clubs involved come from every walk of German football life too.

Current leaders Koln are Bundesliga regulars who suffered relegation last season, and have defied a two-window transfer ban which ended in January to achieve their lofty rank.

The top 10 of the 2. Bundesliga table after 21 games

Koln sit two points ahead of former European Cup winners Hamburg, spending their seventh-straight season in 2. Bundesliga having previously never been relegated from the top flight, and four-time national champions Kaiserslautern.

For Kaiserslautern, this season is the latest step in a remarkable recent history which saw them fall into the third tier in 2018 for four years amid financial hardship, before a recent recovery and even reaching the German Cup final last season.

"They just barely scraped by one year and right now they're on the rebound," George Brown, founder of the American Kaiserslautern Fan Club, tells BBC Sport.

"Kaiserslautern has a population of just under 100,000. Towns of this size in Germany normally have a stadium of about 12,000 [but] they have a stadium of almost 50,000. They believe that their place is up at the top level in the Bundesliga."

A further three points back are Magdeburg, the only side from the old East Germany to win a European trophy – the 1974 Cup Winners' Cup – but who have never played in the Bundesliga.

Most remarkably of all, all nine of their league wins this season have come in away games, their 10 home matches delivering seven draws and three defeats.

There are other contenders too. Fortuna Dusseldorf, who missed out on promotion last season after throwing away a three-goal lead in the play-off, have led the league for longer than any other side and sit fifth. Just below are recognisable names like Hannover and Nuremberg, not forgetting SV Elversberg who are spending just their second season at this level – yet led the division as late as matchday 16.

'It's not distorted by money'

Magdeburg are in promotion contention after winning nine of their 11 away league games this season

And for the final ingredient, add an average attendance of more than 30,000 fans per game. This is boosted by huge crowds at former Champions League sides Hertha Berlin and Schalke, though they are 13th and 14th respectively, and more concerned about relegation.

So yes, it's chaos – but why is it so close?

According to Lovell, a key factor is money – but unlike its English counterpart it is a lack thereof, rather than an imbalanced abundance.

"It's not distorted like the Championship is with these parachute payments coming down, Premier League clubs being rewarded for failure with these huge lumps of cash," he says.

"In German football, they do have a better TV deal then they've had historically but it is nothing like the Championship. It is quite a struggle to get back immediately to the top flight.

"Look at Hamburg. Former European champions, Kevin Keegan [as a former player], they were the reason I got interested in German football, they were historically one of the biggest clubs in Germany and very proud of their record of never being relegated from the top flight.

"They were termed the dinosaur because they were never going to get relegated but that fate happened and they haven't been able to get back."

Robert Stokowi, a former Cologne native who is now part of the FC Koln Supporters USA group, says this title race is the result of smaller, well-run clubs colliding with monoliths experiencing tougher times.

"There's pressure from below, and there's pressure from the first division," he tells BBC Sport. "Koln are an elevator team. Last season we just got beaten badly, and if you look at the Bundesliga right now you have such a discrepancy between how much money teams have, and there's just no way that that is a healthy and interesting competition.

"What we have [in 2.Bundesliga] is a couple more investors, so some of the clubs from the third division get picked up and all of a sudden they get elevated – look at the rise of Heidenheim and Union Berlin.

"I think the second division is the sweet spot because there is some TV revenue, there's an interesting mix of clubs from the first division who had glory days back then, and you have the ones who come up from the lower leagues.

"It is an example of what you can do if you run your club well."

'It makes every single match incredible'

Hamburg spent 55 straight seasons in the Bundesliga before their current seven-year stint in the second division

That excitement has drawn in the spectators and Marco Fuchs and Maike Baensch, chair and deputy of The Supporters Karlsruhe, say membership has tripled.

Karlsruhe however are one of the victims of such a fickle league as a run of four winless games has sent them tumbling from second to 10th.

"It's a difficult situation," says Baensch. "You want people to be engaged in the league, enjoying every game but at the same time it's frustrating and demoralising to think that you're right up there and then all of a sudden you're back in mid table."

No fan or club, Brown says, can be confident in predicting what the season will hold in the final 13 matches.

"All the conversations that I've seen are incredibly cautious," he says. "One of the things that everybody always says is you don't ever talk about a promotion until you get 40 points. The theory is no team has ever been relegated that had 40 points or more.

"But it certainly has made every single match incredible. It doesn't matter if you're the home or away team, it doesn't matter if you're playing the last place team or the first. You have no idea what you're going to get and that just builds excitement and drives people to the stadium.

"I wouldn't advise people to gamble on this league because you just never know what's going to happen," adds Lovell. "Top can beat bottom, and just because you were in the Bundesliga last season doesn't guarantee anything."