Bochum with a lot of luck, Petersen and Polter meet
Nils Petersen carelessly missed the greatest chance of the first half when he shot too quickly (38′). The 0:0 at the break was accordingly performance-based. Shortly before the half-time whistle Bochum were lucky that referee Robert Schröder did not regard a grab by Jürgen Locadia on Philipp Lienhart’s neck as an assault and the VAR did not intervene either. Bochum coach Thomas Reis replaced Locadia with Sebastian Polter as a precaution. A stroke of luck, as it turned out later.
Petersen showed his real class five minutes after the restart. After a shot from the half-right by Kevin Schade, VfL keeper Manuel Riemann was still able to parry. But the ball fell in front of Knipser Petersen, who ran into the right position and dusted the ball from seven meters.
The hosts needed a quarter of an hour to recover from the shock of being behind: Elvis Rexhbecaj took the ball with him in right midfield and served Sebastian Polter with a precise cross: Polter’s header into the far corner was unstoppable for SCF keeper Mark Flekken.
Streich’s coach Freiburg is remodeling
Freiburg coach Christian Streich rebuilt his team 20 minutes before the regular end: Höler, Sallai and Demirovic came on for Petersen, Grifo and Jeong. This did not change anything tactically or effectively in the game, the game remained hard-fought without becoming overly tough: referee Schröder had not once pulled his yellow card out of his breast pocket up to the 90th minute.
Bochum’s best chance of scoring a second goal came in extra time after one of the few corners in the game (99′): Eduard Löwen took a short lead from the left, was quickly passed back and pulled the ball low onto the Freiburg goal – Rexhbecaj missed it ball by a few centimetres. And just three minutes later, Polter missed a cross from Christopher Antwi-Adjei – at that point the home side were much closer to the opening goal than the guests from the south.
Sallai wide awake to the end
Both teams have already dealt with penalties – except for Roland Sallai. Bochum’s otherwise good central defender Maxim Leitsch (78% won tackles, 104 ball contacts) made a failed back pass, which Sallai coldly exploited. Freiburg reached the semi-finals for the second time in the club’s history.
The semi-final opponent will be drawn on Sunday (March 6th, 2022) in the sports show by Olympic bobsleigh champion Laura Nolte. The semi-finals will be played on April 19th and 20th, the final on May 21st, traditionally in Berlin. All games will be broadcast live on ARD.
Source: yeah