Freiburg (dpa / lby) – Heiko Herrlich ran onto the lawn of the Black Forest Stadium with his lips pressed together. Before the international break, FC Augsburg suffered a setback in the battle for relegation at SC Freiburg, who were wearing yellow third jerseys. At the end of the 26th matchday of the Bundesliga, Herrlich and his team lost 2-0 (0-0) on their return to Breisgau on Sunday. While Christian Streich’s team took another step towards the European Cup, the Fuggerstadt team remained under tension.
Roland Sallai (51st minute) and Philipp Lienhart (79th) inflicted their 13th defeat of the season on the FCA. With the win, SC shortened the gap to sixth place and Bayer 04 Leverkusen to three points. After the defeat, Augsburg remain in the table 13th, but are only six points ahead of relegation place 16. For Herrlich, who grew up not far from Freiburg and was also a youth player at SC, it was a disappointing business trip.
FCA captain Jeffrey Gouweleeuw also spoke of a “disappointment”: “It wasn’t necessary to lose here.” Gouweleeuw continued: “Maybe luck wasn’t on our side, maybe we didn’t force it either.” Despite the points gained by the competitors in the relegation battle in Cologne, Mainz and Berlin, Gouweleeuw said: “We don’t look at the other opponents, we have to win our games and score points ourselves.”
Curious: The SC had voluntarily started in their yellow third jerseys at home because one of their professionals suffers from red-green poor eyesight. Since the guests were all in green, there might have been a risk of confusion with the red Freiburg home jerseys for the player concerned. “We said we had to change that,” said SC trainer Christian Streich on the pay-TV channel Sky. “We didn’t want to take that risk.”
Otherwise, at least in the first round, the game remained colorless and unimaginative for long stretches. The hosts started well, but lost speed and precision in the build-up game over the course of the game. This also resulted in a flawed and combat-oriented game in which the Augsburgers mainly concentrated on defending and tried their luck on the counterattack. Only in the second round did the FCA become bolder.
Freiburg could have taken the lead after six minutes through Baptiste Santamaria, but the Frenchman failed from a few meters with a direct pick-up to FCA goalkeeper Rafal Gikiewicz. But the goal would not have counted because Santamaria’s leg was too high when he finished a duel with Felix Uduokhai. Augsburg’s greatest opportunity in the first round had Rani Khedira (39th), who shot just over it after a nice solo.
In four of the previous five games, the Freiburg team remained without a goal, which initially threatened to continue. But then left-back Günter started a strong dribble, rounded several Augsburgers and placed across Sallai, who pushed in from a short distance to take the lead. In return, Marco Richter (52nd) almost equalized for FCA, but the offensive player failed from a tight angle to SC keeper Florian Müller. A little later, Müller also parried the attempts of Khedira (58th) and Daniel Caligiuri (66th).
Coach Herrlich’s team increased the pressure. But the Freiburg team was successful again. Ermedin Demirovic headed a sharp free-kick cross from Günter to the post, and Lienhart finally sank the rebound.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210321-99-914115 / 3
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