15th matchday
“Extremely important for me”: Gregoritsch makes Freiburg happy
SC Freiburg won the Bundesliga for the third time in a row. photo
© Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa
Freiburg achieved its third success in the Bundesliga against Cologne – and again Michael Gregoritsch played a decisive role. This means that the SC remains in close contact with the top places.
Freiburg’s goal producer Michael Gregoritsch accepted the congratulations from his teammates with a smile. In the 2-0 (0-0) against 1. FC Köln, the striker once again scored the important 1-0 for his team, and the 29-year-old also prepared the 2-0.
“It’s been going like this since I scored in the Europa League. It’s nice that I’ve stood correctly a few times now, that’s of course extremely important for me,” said Gregoritsch on the streaming service DAZN.
Thanks to Gregoritsch, SC head coach Christian Streich’s team, which was clearly superior in the end, achieved their third victory in the Bundesliga in a row in front of 34,700 spectators in a sold-out stadium – and for the third time in a row, Gregoritsch played a decisive role, this time he scored as a joker in the 72nd minute. Roland Sallai made everything clear (90th + 5).
Cologne has the weakest offensive in the league
While Freiburg have now been unbeaten for four games, Cologne weakened in many phases of a very mediocre game. With just ten goals after 15 match days, the FC players have by far the weakest offense in the league. The guests also lost Jeff Chabot after a good hour due to yellow-red.
“We will work, we will carry on – and everything else is nonsense anyway,” said Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart somewhat stroppy after the game. “It’s not that everything looks dark now, it’s that we’re not getting good results. In my opinion, today’s performance should have been enough to get a point.”
In the Europa Park Stadium, too, the Ultra fans were silent for the first twelve minutes in protest against investors’ entry into the German Football League. Above all, the shouts and whistles could be heard through Baumgart’s fingers all the way up to the stands. Afterwards, referee Harm Osmers interrupted the game for five minutes: as a further sign of protest, a real shower of chocolate thalers rained down on the lawn from the SC supporters’ block. The gold-colored parts even had to be put in buckets by the folders.
Streich surprisingly initially put Gregoritsch, the winning goalscorer in the 1-0 victories in Mainz and Wolfsburg, on the bench. After the Europa League defeat at West Ham United and before the draw for the second round this Monday, the Freiburg team dictated the action as the game length increased. In addition, the defense around veteran Matthias Ginter and the 22-year-old talent Jordy Makengo on the left side was largely secure.
Selke inconspicuously
The decimation of the opponent by the traffic light card for Chabot, who passed Lucas Höler, and the inclusion of the strikers Gregoritsch and Sallai helped the SC gain more momentum. In the 1-0 win, Gregoritsch benefited from the fact that the FC defenders had left their keeper Marvin Schwäbe pretty much alone.
On the other side, Davie Selke and his attacking colleagues hardly stood out in the second half. The current sporting situation in Cologne is difficult, club legend Lukas Podolski had previously told the TV channel Sport1: “FC now has two difficult away games left, if you lose twice, things will look bleak.”