Narrow defeat to Leipzig

In their second match-up in less than five days, SCF showed the brave and tough-tackling side of their game, with a touch of luck on their side too, at home to the Leipzig side. The only thing preventing a similar start to the midweek defeat to RBL for Christian Streich’s team, though, was a couple of inches.

Timo Werner was played through on goal by Amadou Haidara, but his chip over the onrushing Mark Flekken was wide of the mark (5’). The Germany international then fired an attempt from a similar position over the bar via a small deflection. “We had some luck at the start,” commented Streich after full time. “Sometimes you just can’t defend against things when they’re so well played-out.”

The away side had made two changes from the DFB-Pokal semi-final on Tuesday, as Mohamed Simakan replaced the injured Josko Gvardiol, and Lukas Kolstermann came in for Marcel Halstenberg. Freiburg’s coaching staff made a change of formation in comparison to that 5-1 defeat to today’s opponents, with Vincenzo Grifo, Manuel Gulde and Noah Weißhaupt all coming into the side. Philipp Lienhart, Ritsu Doan and Roland Sallai all missed out.

Weißhaupt looks to make progress down the right

It was youngster Weißhaupt who mad ethe first impression, powering down the right and into the penalty area before being brought down by Willi Orban – referee Tobias Welz was unmoved (16’). Eleven minutes later, the wide man put an attempt from Michael Gregoritsch’s flick-on narrowly wide. Just before that, Christopher Nkunku had rounded Flekken but was unable to get the ball out of his feet to finish (26’).

With three quarters of the first half up, Leipzig led the way in the statistics with seven shots on goal, but the 32,900 fans at the Europa-Park Stadion were encouraged by the 0-0 scoreline – at this point on Tuesday night, Dominik Szoboszlai had just scored to make it 3-0 to RBL. The Freiburg back line kept themselves much tighter than they did in the midweek game, meaning the first half finished goalless.

Haidara gets lucky

The second half got off to a back-and-forth start. Just 27 seconds after the restart, Nkunku’s attempt was almost flicked into the goal by Werner for an RBL opener, but then a stroke of luck for Haidara – already on a yellow card, he was fortunate not to be sent off by referee Welz for a foul on Grifo. “We were unlucky on that. It’s definitely a situation where if he wasn’t already booked, he’d be getting a yellow card there,” said Streich.

The home end were unwavering in their support over an intense 90 minutes, but remained well-behaved and peaceful. Streich praised them in his post-match press conference: “The fans were great today – nothing untoward took place. That was a positive – if that didn’t happen, then the reputation of the club as a friendly one would have been brought into question.”

Kampl bags the winner

Marco Rose reacted to that potential red card for Haidara, taking him off for Kevin Kampl to prevent him from being given his marching orders. Kampl was on the pitch for 20 minutes before taking off on a solo run, getting a lucky bounce of the ball off Gulde and finishing past Flekken to give Leipzig the lead.

The SCF coaching staff tried with all they had to create a positive influence on the game, making four changes on 83 minutes. They did well to create some chances, as Jonathan Schmid and Nils Petersen both came close in the final moments of normal time. Petersen’s effort fell to Lucas Höler on the rebound, but the striker was unable to react in time. “We gave our all and we’re very happy that the lads have done so,” said Streich. “We aren’t in the position to take points of Leipzig and Bayern at the moment.”

The scoreline stayed at 1-0, meaning SCF are level on points with Union Berlin and in fifth position. Next Saturday sees the two sides fighting for a Champions League place face off against each other in Köpenick – kick-off is 15:30 CEST.