Tuesday 15 November 2011
Monday 7 November 2011
Matchday 12: Freiburg on top in basement battle
Hi everyone. It was another entertaining fix of Bundesliga action last weekend. Mainz and Stuttgart got us underway last weekend with a highly entertaining game, in which Mainz ran out 3-1 winners; Jürgen Klopp got one over on Felix Magath as Dortmund thrashed Wolfsburg 5-1; Bayern won another Bavarian derby away at Augsburg on Sunday evening; and Werder Bremen again stayed true to their gung-ho approach by beating Köln 3-2 at the Weserstadion.
But of all those dramatic, high-scoring matches, I’m going to focus this week’s post on SC Freiburg’s 2-1 win away to Nürnberg.
Considering their impressive perfomance last season, when they finished 9th in the table, Freiburg have been poor in the current campaign. They do create chances in games, and in Papiss Demba Cissé they have one of the best strikers in Europe leading their attack. But they had lost eight of eleven league matches going into the weekend’s game and were on the back of three successive defeats, with a ‘goals against’ column of 27, the worst in the division. They had shipped seven at Bayern Munich, five at Bremen and four at Schalke. But Nürnberg away was a winnable game, with the home side on a six-match winless run themselves, and having taken three points at home just once in their nine previous matches.
The home side had the better of a rather turgid opening quarter to the game. Winger Alexander Esswien was denied from close range by Freiburg keeper Oliver Baumann after the erstwhile Celtic defender Andreas Hinkel’s error after eight minutes. Then, on 20 minutes, Czech striker Thomas Pekhart, formerly of Tottenham Hotspur, and once dubbed the next Pavel Nedved upon arriving at White Hart Lane,, contrived to shank his half-volley wide from four yards out. Judging from that miss, it’s not that hard to see why he didn’t make that much of an impact in England.
But ten minutes later Nürnberg opened the scoring. After an amazing piece of skill on the wing by Esswein, his cutback was scuffed towards the goal by Pekhart, whose shot was then nodded in by Mike Frantz. The lead lasted just two minutes, however, as Freiburg equalised with possibly the worst goal of the season so far. Julian Schuster’s hopeful punt into the box was miscontrolled by Jan Rosenthal, whereupon the ball wrong-footed keeper Raphael Schäfer and trickled over the line past Schäfer’s despairing dive. Cissé ran in to follow up and hammered the ball into the net when it was already over the line, making an ugly goal look even uglier.
The second half didn’t see much flowing football either, as neither side had many chances. Nürnberg did have the ball in the net again, but Esswein’s volley was ruled out for offside as two players were ahead of the last defender and deemed to be blocking the keeper’s view. At the other end, Freiburg went close in the 76th minute, but Cissé missed the target with a wasteful header from seven yards. But the Senegalese international, last year’s second top scorer with 22 league goals, wasn’t to be denied, as Freiburg pinched the three points at the death. A weak back-header by home defender Timm Klose let in Rosenthal, and the forward was brought down by substitute goalkeeper Alexander Stephan. Referee Christian Dingert had no choice but to award a penalty, and Cissé, who’d had a quiet game, stepped up to win it for Freiburg with the last kick of the game.
Nürnberg, who are now yet to win in seven games and sit just two points above the relegation play-off place, looked visibly disconconsolate, especially defender Timm, whose error led to that last-minute penalty. Their main problem is scoring goals, having netted just 13 times in their twelve games this term. Freiburg, by contrast, betrayed all the emotions that just an away win at one of their rivals, and just their third victory of the season so far, would have produced: relief, ecstasy and gratitude to manager Marcus Sorg.
An interesting post-script to the win was the reaction of Papiss Cissé himself, however. His smile at winning three points was notably less zealous than those of his teammates, and he looked rather indifferent as managed Sorg embraced him after the game. It’s no secret that the Senegalese hitman wanted to leave Freiburg this summer, and was apparently the subject of interest from Premier League clubs Fulham and Sunderland. He already has eight goals this season in a struggling team, and I expect he’ll get his wish to move to a bigger club, perhaps Sunderland even, in January.
Matchday 12 – Results:
Mainz 3-1 Stuttgart
Dortmund 5-1 Wolfsburg
Bremen 3-2 Köln
Nürnberg 1-2 Freiburg
Hoffenheim 1-1 Kaiserslautern
Hertha 1-2 Gladbach
Leverkusen 2-2 Hamburg
Hannover 2-2 Schalke
Augsburg 1-2 Bayern
Next week it’s the international break. Germany play two friendly games in that period, away in the Ukraine on Friday and then at home to Holland next Wednesday, a game which I’m certainly looking forward to, as the favourites of many for the Euros next summer, barring Spain of course, go head-to-head. I’ll be back with a review of those two games, as well as a brief look ahead to matchday 13 of the Bundesliga on the weekend of the 18th/19th/20th November.
Hau rein.
Bernie
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