The 2022 finalist remains on the way to Berlin: Thanks to Vincenzo Grifo’s right foot, SC Freiburg reached the round of the last eight in the DFB Cup on Wednesday. The 32-year-old first scored with a perfect penalty in the 2-0 (1-0) win against Darmstadt 98 (42nd minute) and then sensitively set up Lucas Höler’s goal (69th) – but he also missed a penalty.
“At the moment we are in a very, very good mood, we are very, very stable.”said Grifo after the success at the Sportschau microphone: “We are very relieved and super happy that we did it.”
The game initially had very little to offer, in terms of football it was very poor and it didn’t look like a cup fight either. Darmstadt limited itself to defensive work, Freiburg couldn’t do much with the ball. So even the best chance didn’t come to fruition when Jan-Niklas Beste got into a two-on-one situation, but his cross-pass attempt to Grifo didn’t go through (22′).
Darmstadt then repositioned itself and went on the offensive and had a few good opportunities. The most spectacular thing happened when Matthias Bader fired a volley to give Florian Müller the opportunity to make a very impressive flying save (27′). Shortly afterwards, the Freiburg goalkeeper, who was allowed to play again in the cup for Noah Atubolu, was there twice against Darmstadt snapper Isac Lidberg (28th/30th).
Manzambi is giving Darmstadt a lot of trouble
Then came Freiburg’s minutes Shooting star Johan Manzambi. In the 36th minute, the Swiss fell in the opponent’s penalty area after a tackle from Kai Klefisch and was stunned that Harm Osmers didn’t whistle a penalty, but rather a free kick against him. It wasn’t really clear why the referee decided this way. A penalty wasn’t mandatory, but a “can-penalty” was.
Shortly afterwards, Manzambi had an even better chance than a penalty when he finished four meters in front of the goal, but 98 keeper Marcel Schuhen reacted fantastically (40th). However, the 20-year-old was unstoppable after that and elegantly outplayed Patric Pfeiffer, who then passed him – and this time Manzambi got the penalty. Grifo took over and chased the ball exactly into the corner, it was the perfect finish from the point at the perfect time for Freiburg (42nd).
Shoes prevented Grifo’s double, but not his dream assist
Coach Julian Schuster’s team wanted to maintain their momentum in the second half, but Schuhen saved his team from conceding the second goal after Grifo’s shot (53′). And that was it for the Freiburg momentum. Following this opportunity, there was again a lot of idleness in the game.
The only player who continued to radiate esprit on a regular basis was Manzambi, who kept getting through with his dribbling and put Freiburg in promising situations. Above all, the midfielder often managed to get set pieces for his team – and it is well known that these are a specialty of the Bundesliga club.
Grifo is often the decisive man with his right foot and this time his magic foot took him out of the game after his penalty. After a counterattack, the former Italian international played a dream pass to Höler, who kept his calm and chipped the ball past Schuhe to make it 2-0 (69′).
Freiburg keeper Müller is strong again several times
The game seemed decided, but Müller had to make two more saves after headers from Matej Maglica (75th/76th) to prevent the second division guests from having any hope of turning things around. Shortly afterwards, Freiburg’s keeper was also there to take a shot from the Darmstadt defender (77′) – the eighth-placed team in the Bundesliga also needed a strong performance from Atubolu’s representative.
Thanks to him, Manzambi and Grifo’s magic foot (although he hit another penalty against the crossbar in the 84th minute), the Schuster team was able to continue its strong run and has now only lost one of the last eight games (2:6 at FC Bayern Munich).
This series should continue on Saturday when the next Bundesliga game is at 1. FC Heidenheim (3:30 p.m.). For Darmstadt (Maglica saw yellow-red in the 88th minute), which lost again after five games without defeat, the game continues a league lower against Karlsruher SC (8.30 p.m.) in the evening. And then Freiburg will of course be watching the draw for the quarter-finals in the DFB Cup on Sunday (live from 7:15 p.m. on Sportschau on Erste and as a live stream on sportschau.de).