At least some of the opportunity was taken advantage of: after months of decline, VfL Wolfsburg can for the first time again have increased hopes of staying in the Bundesliga. Although the Lower Saxony team missed out on victory after taking the lead, they still managed a 1-1 (0-0) draw at SC Freiburg on the third-to-last matchday. Thanks to the draw, VfL climbed past FC St. Pauli into relegation place after eight rounds in a row as second to last – level on points with their last opponent of the season from Hamburg.
Konstantinos Koulierakis (55th) scored for Wolfsburg, who face champions Bayern Munich in their next game. Freiburg suffered a setback in the fight for participation in the European Cup, despite Philipp Lienhart’s goal (75th). The SC is still in the desired seventh place, one point ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt. On Thursday, the Breisgauer team would like to reach the final of the Europa League for the first time in the club’s history. In the semi-final second leg, the SC has to make up for a 1-2 defeat from the first leg against the Portuguese from Sporting Braga.
“Freiburg has a first-class team. We’re going to have quality there. We have to do something for the game ourselves,” said VfL coach Dieter Hecking shortly before his 450th Bundesliga game as a coach at DAZN: “It’s not just a number, I’m proud of it. It speaks for itself that you’ve done a lot of things right in your career.”
The Wolfsburg team, who will be without their injured captain Maximilian Arnold until the end of the season, were close to taking the lead in the 9th minute. Captain’s representative Christian Eriksen hit the post. Six minutes later, Dzenan Pejcinovic had a goal for VfL.
Nothing much happened after that. The Freiburg team, who had to make do without Patrick Osterhage and Max Rosenfelder, looked pretty tired amidst the strains of the European Cup. Nothing more came from the guests either. By the break it was becoming a bore.
At the start of the second half, Wolfsburg were more active again. The Hecking team was looking to win the ball early, the Freiburg defense didn’t always seem solid. In the 51st minute, VfL attacker Adam Daghim was denied by Freiburg goalkeeper Noah Atubolu. Wolfsburg’s lead was up in the air at this stage, the SC was far too passive. After almost an hour the time had come: following an Eriksen corner, the Greek Koulierakis was there with his head.
Only after falling behind did Freiburg wake up and increase the number of hits. The Wolves remained more dangerous, but Austrian substitute Lienhart scored the goal with a header for Freiburg.
