SC Freiburg in the Europa League semi-finals: late quarry landing

Anthony Taylor is from Manchester. Before he made a name for himself as a referee, he was a prison guard. Today you can book him as a speaker – provided, of course, that he is not standing on the pitch with a pipe. All of this can be found out in just a few minutes on the global Internet. What we don’t know, however, is whether Taylor had simply had enough of this football game between SC Braga and SC Freiburg on Thursday evening – or whether he was just forgiving and empathetic because he must have noticed how much energy the 90 minutes had cost.

In any case, it was quite unusual that Taylor only ordered two minutes of added time towards the end of this first leg of the Europa League semi-final. A rare short encore, but it was just long enough for Braga to make it 2-1 at the last minute. And so, even though the game wasn’t particularly high-class, the individual pictures came together to create a colorful evening with several short stories.

One was about the eternal Vincenzo Grifo, who scored 1-1 (16th) after the early 0-1 by Demir Ege Tiknaz (8th). Another revolved around Niklas Beste, who didn’t have an easy time at Benfica Lisbon in the second half of 2024, but is blossoming again in Breisgau and now, on his return to Portugal, prepared Grifo’s goal and was generally Freiburger’s best.

There were small, story-worthy events that stood for themselves – including that of goalkeeper Noah Atubolu, who saved a penalty from former Schalke player Rodrigo Zalazar shortly before half-time, but in stoppage time made it possible for Braga to make it 2-1 through Mario Dorgeles by letting the ball rebound after a shot from Vitor Carvalho.

At the end of the season it is clear that the sports club has to pay tribute to the stresses of the past few months

Grifo, Beste, Atubolu: Anyone who puts the short stories into a larger context will realize that they are all related to each other. When Grifo, 33, the good old left winger, scored his goal after a run across half the pitch, he was still in full possession of his strength. Later, when they wore off, it remained almost ineffective. Beste, on the other hand, the long-running runner, was particularly noticeable because he found reserves in the last quarter of an hour to help defend his own goal on the baseline. And it was Atubolu, the tragic hero, who afterwards made no secret of the fact that the team “lacked strength in the end”.

So that’s what radiates from this evening into the Bundesliga and into the second leg next Thursday in Freiburg: Given the pressures in three competitions, the sports club is paying a pretty high price for energy these days. A burden that is so heavy precisely because Freiburg, with its complex style of play, is already one of the most energy-intensive companies in the Bundesliga.

“From the 70th minute onwards, the pace of the game was no longer as high as it was before,” diagnosed Freiburg coach Julian Schuster in Braga. In the last few meters of the season, his team can no longer hide the fact that they have to pay tribute to the high demands of the past few months. An admission that could also and especially be linked to Johan Manzambi, this season’s newcomer. While the midfielder usually acts as the engine of Freiburg’s game with his presence and dynamism between the two penalty areas, he remained only a peripheral figure in Portugal.

The only thing that was powerful was the rocks that built up behind one of the two gates. Braga’s home ground is located in a former quarry and hosted a Europa League semi-final for the second time since 2011. It’s places like these that make Freiburg’s European trip special. Whether it also leads to Istanbul, for the final in two and a half weeks, will largely depend on how many reserves the sports club can mobilize.

“We definitely have to blame ourselves for wasting an even better starting situation with the last action,” said Schuster on Thursday evening, but also emphasized: “We are still looking positively at the second leg. We have the self-confidence and quality to turn it around.”

If they now muster the strength, Freiburg’s path can actually lead to Istanbul.