The standard experts at SC Freiburg have overcome their dry spell in the Bundesliga. Coach Christian Streich’s team defeated their favorite opponent FC Augsburg in an extremely tough home game 2-0 (1-0) and took three points again after three games without a win. Freiburg managed to move into the first third of the table with ten points.
Vincenzo Grifo with a penalty kick (5th) and Philipp Lienhart after a corner (56th) scored for the sixth win in a row against FCA, and the defense, which came under criticism at the start of the season, also impressed before the hammer week with games against West Ham United and Bayern Munich . FC Augsburg, on the other hand, remains pointless away from home. The trend with only one win from the last nine league games across the seasons is worrying.
Freiburg’s game this season is “still a bit tough,” complained sports director Klemens Hartenbach before kick-off, “last year we had more ease in our attacking actions.” But “the knot could unravel at any moment”. When warming up, the sports club’s players wore Christian Günter’s jerseys; the captain suffered a setback with an infection after his arm operation – which meant he was out until the end of the year.
Even without its leader, Freiburg got off to a lightning start. Iago clumsily kicked over the clever Roland Sallai in the penalty area, Grifo coldly sank the penalty into the corner of the goal. But Augsburg shook itself quickly, things went back and forth in the early stages. After Yannik Keitel’s disastrous back pass, Philip Tietz missed the quick equalizer in a one-on-one with Noah Atubolu (9th).
However, after the furious first ten minutes, the game completely died down in front of 33,134 spectators. Augsburg pressed man to man all over the pitch, nipping many Freiburg combinations in the bud. The Bavarian Swabians could hardly do anything with the ball. So there was a lot of idle time until the break.
After the change, little else happened. Both teams hit a lot of long passes, then went for the second ball – that wasn’t productive. Consequently, a standard was needed, Lienhart nodded in a corner from the strong Grifo. Ex-Freiburg player Ermedin Demirovic also missed Augsburg’s best chance after a corner (67′). Sven Michel’s (80th) goal didn’t count because it was offside.