Thanks to a hard-fought success in a great anniversary game, SC Freiburg still has their sights on the European Cup. The Breisgauer team won the Baden duel at the start of the second half of the Bundesliga 3-2 against TSG Hoffenheim.
Lucas Höler (37th), Vincenzo Grifo (55th) and Roland Sallai (85th) scored in Freiburg’s 800th Bundesliga game for SC, which is four points ahead of Hoffenheim. Freiburg has extended its home series to seven games without defeat.
TSG coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, on the other hand, lost all of his eight Bundesliga games against the sports club. The goals from Wout Weghorst (57′) and Maximilian Beier (77′) didn’t change that. SC defender Manuel Gulde was shown a yellow-red card for repeated foul play (82′). “You could hear the stones tumbling at the final whistle. The coach’s reaction also showed that it was a lot of hard work and very important,” said SC sports director Jochen Saier after the win on Sky.
“We have to do a lot of things right to leave the pitch as winners. “It’s going to be a very difficult game,” said SC coach Christian Streich shortly before kick-off. His counterpart Matarazzo called on his team to “defend with heart” and “take advantage of opportunities after winning the ball”.
Freiburg is severely weakened
The 33,600 spectators saw a largely even game until the middle of the first half. TSG professional Andrej Kramaric (17th) and SC captain Grifo (21st) had the best chances in this phase.
After that the game quieted down a bit for a few minutes. The weakened hosts, who had to make do without Ritsu Doan as well as Christian Günter, Daniel-Kofi Kyereh, Philipp Lienhart and Kenneth Schmidt, were hardly able to make an impact on the offensive.
Höler hits, Höler fails
The Hoffenheim team, who were missing the suspended Grischa Prömel, Mergim Berisha, Dennis Geiger and Marco John, placed their main focus on defense. It wasn’t until the 35th minute that TSG goalkeeper Oliver Baumann had to intervene again when Sallai had a good opportunity.
Two minutes later, Baumann was powerless to stop Höler’s shot; Grifo had greatly prepared the striker’s sixth goal of the season. Shortly afterwards, Höler could have increased again on Grifo’s assist, but failed because of Baumann (40th).
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In the first minutes of the second half, Freiburg’s second goal was in the air, after a mistake by TSG defense chief Florian Grillitsch, Grifo didn’t have to be asked twice. Weghorst immediately brought Hoffenheim back into the game.
Afterwards, Hoffenheim pushed for an equalizer, Freiburg waited for a counterattack. Things got tricky several times in front of both goals during this phase. Beier equalized.