Eintracht Frankfurt coach Niko Kovac bemoaned his side's luck after a 1-0 defeat at Werder Bremen left them clinging to their Bundesliga status.
Kovac, whose team now face a relegation playoff after finishing 16th, said the free kick which led to Bremen's winning goal should not have been given.
Papy Djilobodji's subsequent 87th-minute effort allowed the hosts to climb above their guests and to safety.
Frankfurt will now face the third-placed team in Germany's second tier, Nurnberg, home and away to determine the 18th club participating in the Bundesliga next season.
"I don't want to pin the blame on that, but I don't think it was a foul," Kovac told Sky Sport. "[The referee] told me that the player had definitely touched him, and I can see that now, but I'm not entirely happy about the situation.
"Certainly I'm very disappointed now, but I've got to say that Bremen played a very good game.
"We put too little into the game. It wasn't easy for us because we had none of the possession and the pressure kept growing and growing.
"Now we've got to lift our heads and puff out our chests. We've got two games left to stay up.
"We will watch Nurnberg play in Paderborn tomorrow and lift our players up, and we will show a different face on Thursday."
Hundreds of Bremen fans stormed onto the field at the final whistle in the Weserstadion as emotions poured out, even if Bremen's director of sport Thomas Eichin said he had managed to keep his cool on the bench.
"In terms of the drama and suspense, it was incredible," he said. "But we had always said that we could win it in the last minute, and that is what has happened.
"I think we always had the coolness and composure we needed, and we always believed that we were good enough."