Lively European duel
©IMAGO
Despite a brace from national player Jonathan Burkardt, the spectacle specialists from Eintracht Frankfurt missed out on their fourth win of the season in the Bundesliga. After conceding a late goal with a remarkable free kick from Vincenzo Grifo (87th minute), the Hessians couldn’t get past a 2-2 (2-1) draw at SC Freiburg and were even lucky in the end. In the table, the Frankfurt team, who recently delivered the wildest results – such as the 6:4 at Borussia Mönchengladbach – are in seventh place. On Wednesday they will meet English champions FC Liverpool with Florian Wirtz in the Champions League.
Derry Scherhant scored in the second minute to make it 1-0 for Baden in front of 34,700 spectators, including former Freiburg cult coach Christian Streich. Thanks to Burkardt (18th/38th), the guests temporarily turned the game around – and thus showed a good reaction to the setbacks against Atlético Madrid (1:5) and FC Bayern Munich (0:3) before the international break. Joker Grifo struck back again for Freiburg and the SC remained unbeaten in their seventh competitive game in a row.
Coach Julian Schuster initially surprisingly offered young Scherhant on the left side instead of veteran Grifo – and he immediately repaid the trust with his starting eleven debut in the Freiburg jersey. After a bad pass from Frankfurt’s defense chief Robin Koch and a pass from Johan Manzambi, the 22-year-old scored with a low shot to take the early lead.
It turned out to be an entertaining first half, in which both teams got down to business courageously, but at times also acted quite incorrectly. Burkardt’s 1-1 draw was more of a coincidence. The ball ended up in a detour at the 25-year-old, who then processed it with outstanding technical skill and placed it in the bottom right corner of the goal.
Seven minutes before the break, Burkardt was there again. After preparatory work by Fares Chaibi, the attacker, who came from FSV Mainz 05 in the summer, pushed the ball over the line from close range to make it 1-2.
Freiburg worked to equalize after the break. In addition to Scherhant, the only 20-year-old Johan Manzambi was once again one of the Breisgauer’s assets. After a good hour, Coach Schuster also strengthened his offensive with ex-Frankfurt player Igor Matanovic. But things were rarely really dangerous in and around the guests’ penalty area.
Eintracht didn’t do more forward than necessary, but with a now controlled performance they initially prevented Freiburg’s final offensive. When everything was already pointing to an away win, substitute Grifo scored with a remarkable free kick to make it 2-2.