In the continuous rain, SC Freiburg stormed into second place in the Bundesliga. The Europa League participants scored their third win in their fourth game in a 1-0 (0-0) win against bottom VfL Bochum with no points on Friday evening and, with nine points, is the first pursuer of leaders Bayern Munich at least until Saturday afternoon. Vincenzo Grifo scored the winning goal in the 48th minute. “In the end we got lucky in two or three actions. But we worked hard for that. We missed deciding the game beforehand. It’s extremely important in a season to get games like this going,” emphasized Freiburg captain Christian Günter DAZN, and striker Nils Petersen said: “It is also a quality to win in the end to zero. That is also the luck of the fit.”
Although VfL showed a great improvement compared to the 0:7 against Bayern, they are still waiting for a sense of achievement. “It’s very annoying. We deserved a point on the performance. We played a good game, but what’s the point?” said Bochum midfielder Kevin Stöger: “If you go into the dressing room now, you see empty faces. “
Freiburg should have taken the lead in the first half. However, they repeatedly failed because of themselves or because of VfL goalkeeper Manuel Riemann. However, the goalkeeper was not blameless for the crucial goal conceded. Because Riemann became a tragic figure at the SC lead goal. The 33-year-old initially conceded a penalty when he dropped the ball and then pulled down Roland Sallai’s shorts. Riemann saved Grifo’s penalty and his subsequent header, but was powerless on the Italian’s third try.
Bochum coach Thomas Reis only had five days to get the performance against Bayern out of the minds of his players. He seemed to have found the right words in the short week of training. Bochum – changed to four positions – started much more actively in front of 32,800 spectators. There was no trace of uncertainty. Gerrit Holtmann, who was called up again from the start, boosted the offensive game of the guests. He tested SC keeper Mark Flekken (9′) and three minutes later Takuma Asano was denied by the Dutch international goalkeeper. However, the shot from the Japanese was Bochum’s last offensive sign of life for a long period of time.
Clean passes were almost impossible because of the thunderstorm over the stadium
Freiburg turned up the heat without Maximilian Eggestein, who had surgery on his broken wrist, after an initial phase in which both the passes and the accuracy were lacking. Captain Christian Günter stole away behind the VfL defense but couldn’t get the ball past Riemann (10′). The pace picked up. After Cristian Gamboa misplayed a throw-in despite several warnings, Ritsu Doan missed Freiburg’s lead (18′). The VfL pros came under more and more pressure and were lucky that Freiburg also missed a triple opportunity (22nd).
The game turned into a slide game. Clean passes were almost impossible because of the thunderstorm over the Europa-Park stadium, so Sallai and Holtmann decided to shoot from a distance, but they didn’t bring the desired success. Just seconds after the restart, video referee Guido Winkmann contacted referee Marco Fritz. Riemann failed to hold a cross from Günter and then brought down Sallai. Bochum fought bravely and were unlucky twice when Holtmann hit the post (65th) and crossbar (84th). In addition, the guests awarded other top-class opportunities. But Freiburg also had the chance to make a preliminary decision. Michael Gregoritsch (72′) and Nils Petersen (81′) also hit the target.