New Headline: "Meyer’s Magic Lights Up Freiburg as They Build 3-0 Advantage Over Union Berlin
PLAYER RATINGS | SC Freiburg 0-1 Union Berlin – Freiburg lose pace in their chase for Europe thanks to a late Woo-Yeong Jeong goal European hopefuls Freiburg met floundering Union Berlin at the Europa-Park Stadion on Sunday afternoon, with the aims for the remainder of the season clear for both clubs. Julian Schuster’s Freiburg sat in 8 th place going into the weekend, which could be enough for European football, but with a win would keep the pressure firmly on Eintracht Frankfurt in front . Steffen Baumgart’s side, meanwhile, has found life difficult over the last couple of months.
Having seen themselves drop from challenging for the European places, they’re now nervously looking over their shoulder, keen to pull away from the big group of clubs battling relegation. Schuster made a total of five changes from Die Breisgauer ’s 1-0 defeat to Genk in the Europa League on Thursday night. Christian Günter, Jan-Niklas Beste, Patrick Osterhage, Vincenzo Grifo and Yuito Suzuki all dropped to the bench in place of Jordy Makengo, Maximilian Eggestein, Lucas Höler, Cyriaque Irié and Derry Scherhant.
Following last weekend’s tough defeat at home to Werder Bremen, Baumgart was forced into making four changes, after injury to Frederik Rønnow, and suspensions for András Schäferand Leopold Querfeld, Aljoscha Kemlein was also dropped to the bench. Bundesliga debutant Matteo Raab replaced Rønnow in goal, Christopher Trimmel, Livan Burcu and Tim Skarke also came into Baumgart’s starting XI. Despite plenty of early possession for the visitors, it was Freiburg who had the first real opportunity of the afternoon when some nice skill from Irié worked some space for Philipp Treu to pick out Maximilian Eggestein just inside the box.
Freiburg’s captain on the day sent his effort just over the bar. With the hosts trying to regain control of possession, Andrej Ilić dispossessed Bruno Ogbus in a dangerous area and quickly let fly on Atubolu’s goal. The German stopper was relieved to see the Serb’s effort strike the side netting.
Freiburg continued to probe for the remainder of the half and fashioned a couple of half-chances through Scherhant and Johan Manzambi, but failed to find the breakthrough before the half-time whistle. The second half began in much the same fashion, and apart from a couple of minutes of pressure from Freiburg, both teams were really struggling to make any inroads on the opposition’s penalty areas. The best chance of the game arrived just shy of 70 minutes when again Ilić won a headed duel with Ogbus, the ball fell kindly to Alex Král, but the Czech failed to really work Atubolu in the Freiburg goal.
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