Bundesliga: Freiburg spectacle in Wolfsburg, Cologne frustration

SEver since Christian Ilzer passed through the first valleys at TSG Hoffenheim and enjoys unlimited trust as a coach, things have been going well. No Bundesliga team has clocked up as many kilometers as the 48-year-old Austrian’s selection; there have been over 1,700 so far this season. And something else has been going on for a while now: “The disgrace,” said Ilzer recently – that’s what they call it in his homeland when fun and performance balance each other out. Before the game at VfB Stuttgart, Hoffenheim was in fifth place in the table, one point ahead of VfB.

The first half of the Baden-Württemberg derby went the way it usually goes when two strong teams want to take away each other’s strengths: Not much happened offensively. Stuttgart’s Tiago Tomás missed the first really big chance in front of Oliver Baumann. The fact that the national goalkeeper was also the best Hoffenheim player in the second half showed that the guests’ point win was a lucky one in the end. And when Baumann was beaten by Deniz Undav shortly before the end, the offside flag saved the game. Canvas!

The goalless top game on Saturday afternoon also set the guiding question for the remaining games: How do you score goals when the offensive lines are inhibited or are already halfway through the Christmas break?

Frankfurt puzzle: How do you hit without a full attack line?

At Eintracht, the majority of the offensive team had recently gone on sick leave or headed towards the Africa Cup, but their colleagues at Hamburger SV found an effective antidote: they took advantage of the only chance that had been available to them for a long time. Frankfurt defender Nnamdi Collins played long and diagonally to full-back Nathaniel Brown, whose cross pass shot so perfectly into the penalty area that defensive midfielder Hugo Larsson couldn’t help but score (26′). Small flaw: Collins had previously made an epic bad pass in his own penalty area, Hamburg’s Albert Lokonga thanked him and scored to give Hamburg the lead (10th). In the end, the Hessians were lucky that HSV respected the pre-Christmas peace and refrained from scoring their obligatory goal in stoppage time.

Will the lull from Bremen’s zero-goal storm continue at FC Augsburg?

Indeed. However, you couldn’t really blame Victor Boniface or Keke Topp for that. Because Topp was only allowed to play for the last ten minutes of the game, and Boniface didn’t even make it into the squad. The most noticeable offensive force was initially a trained winger in the Augsburg ranks: Marius Wolf was called up as a center forward by interim coach Manuel Baum. And the 30-year-old even had the best chance in the first half; After a lob he appeared free in front of Mio Backhaus, but the Bremen goalkeeper made a strong save. So both sides brought the game to the finish line in the second half as feared: always trying, but with no luck and goalless.

Can 1. FC Köln even win if Said El Mala isn’t even in the starting line-up?

Six months ago, a portal estimated the market value of Cologne offensive force Said El Mala at one million euros. Six goals and three assists in 14 games later, the value has reportedly risen to 40 million euros. It’s cool, El Mala recently said, but at the same time assured: “Our team is always my top priority, to win games and make our fans and my family happy.”

So it shouldn’t have upset the 19-year-old that he sat on the bench in the home game against Union Berlin. His coach Lukas Kwasniok announced the corresponding plan before the game: first they wanted to play the strong opponent when they were tired, then push a rested El Mala into the ever-growing spaces. In practice, the plan was canceled shortly before the end at the latest, when Cologne’s Rav van den Berg intercepted a diagonal ball with his hand and was the last man to thwart a clear chance for the Berliners – expulsion, Cologne outnumbered. It was actually Union’s András Schäfer who scored the goal of the day with a dropkick in stoppage time. El Mala? He was substituted on after almost 70 minutes and was barely visible in the narrow spaces of Berlin.

And what did Daniel Baum experience on his debut as Wolfsburg head coach?

By far the highest-scoring game of Saturday afternoon! But that was less due to offensive creativity and more because both sides outdone each other with mistakes. The first goal came from a technically brilliant move; Freiburg’s Philipp Treu took a volley from a deflected cross and hit it squarely into the corner of the goal (5′). But then: Treu let Patrick Wimmer take the ball in midfield, and Dzenan Pejcinovic completed the straightforward counterattack (13th). Or also: Freiburg goalkeeper Noah Atobulo saw Pejcinovic cutting off his passing path, but still played the ball into Wolfsburg’s feet – 2-1 (49th).

If you want to prevent Freiburg from scoring goals, you shouldn’t give a penalty kick (as Wolfsburg’s Jenson Seelt did against Lucas Höler). Because then Vincenzo Grifo scores (56th). Wolfsburg had hope again because Pejcinovic was allowed to give the third goal to the confused Freiburg defense (69th). But two minutes later, Matthias Ginter rose up to head the ball, but from a few meters it didn’t hit the goal, but Wolfsburg’s Seelt, whose leg flipped the ball into the goal. The punchline was set by Freiburg’s Derry Scherhant (79′), now technically fine again: instead of passing across from the half-right flank in the penalty area, he hit the ball into the goal.