Having reached the quarter-finals of a UEFA competition for the first time in their history courtesy of a 5-2 aggregate victory over Genk in the last round, Freiburg almost got the better of runaway Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich at the weekend before conceding twice in injury time to lose 3-2. They were clearly eager to make up for throwing their advantage away so late versus the Bavarians, dominating their Spanish opponents throughout the first half.
Igor Matanovic had the game’s first chance, heading over the crossbar inside two minutes, before a fierce Maximilian Eggestein effort was well held by Ionut Radu.
By the 10-minute mark, though, the Breisgau Brazilians were in front through their very own living legend. Vincenzo Grifo recently became the club’s all-time record goalscorer, and he made his mark once more, curling into the bottom corner from outside the area.
In response, Celta had plenty of possession but did little with it, and their hosts made them pay for their lack of threat shortly after the half-hour mark. Matanovic would have been forgiven for shooting when the ball was poked through to him by Philipp Treu, albeit from a tight angle, yet he showed fantastic awareness to square the ball for Jan-Niklas Beste to tap home from close range.
Freiburg could have been even further ahead at the break had Johan Manzambi’s attempt been a few inches left of the upright it ultimately hit.
After the interval, Freiburg remained the more dangerous but were unable to create the same quality of chances, with Grifo’s low drive from distance comfortably stopped by Radu.
Before this round, Celta had scored more goals than any other team in the competition, yet they were almost completely nullified by Freiburg’s impressive backline. In fact, they failed to even register a shot on target during the 90 minutes, with Fer Lopez’s first-time effort that crept just past the post the closest they came.
Ultimately, Freiburg added a third with a little under 15 minutes remaining as Matthias Ginter headed home from a corner.
As such, they are now well on course to reach a second semi-final of the campaign, having already booked their place in the last four of the DFB Pokal.
Celta, meanwhile, were beaten for the first time in nine away matches across all competitions and will require a significantly improved performance in Spain next week if they are to have any chance of reaching the UEL semi-finals for the second time ever.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Igor Matanovic (Freiburg)
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