High-flying Freiburg welcome bottom-of-the-table Greuther Furth to the Europa-Park Stadion on Saturday afternoon in the 10th round of Bundesliga games.
The hosts are overperforming and sit third in the table, whilst their upcoming opponents remain rooted to the bottom, four points behind 17th-placed Arminia Bielefeld.
Match preview
© Reuters
Freiburg remain the only unbeaten side in the Bundesliga this season, having won five and drawn four of their opening nine games.
They began life at their new stadium - the Stadion SC Freiburg - with a draw against RB Leipzig and then followed that up with an impressive 2-0 win away at Wolfsburg, Philipp Lienhart and Lucas Holer grabbing a goal in each half against a side falling rapidly down the table.
Manager Christian Streich has been in charge of the club for almost a decade and has been through it all: a relegation to the second-tier in 2014-15; an immediate return as champions the following season; and plenty more ups and downs.
During that time, the highest Freiburg have ever finished was fifth, way back in 2013, so this is a truly exceptional start to the campaign for what is, more often than not, a mid-table club.
Streich is keen to enforce defensive solidarity in his side and, with their six conceded goals being the lowest in the division, he is certainly doing that; every opponent will know that they have a fight on their hands to break down this side.
© Reuters
Greuther Furth will not be a team looking forward to a challenge, as they are producing enough problems of their own without facing the league's best defence.
Few expected last season's second-best side in the second tier to spring too many surprises on their return to the Bundesliga, but eight defeats from their opening nine matches has made it a humiliating return to date.
The one game in which they avoided defeat was a 1-1 draw at home to Arminia Bielefeld - the side one place above them at the bottom of the table - which is arguably their easiest fixture of the entire season.
It was also a long time ago. Kleeblatter now find themselves on a run of seven consecutive defeats and are on a trajectory to produce an even worse points tally than during their only previous stay in the top flight, where they won just four matches back in 2012-13 and were immediately relegated in last place.
The one silver lining for manager Stefan Leitl heading into this match is that they were able to rest during the week, whilst their opponents played in the DFB-Pokal, but that is only due to the fact that they were knocked out of the competition by fourth-tier SV Babelsberg back in August.
- D
- D
- W
- W
- D
- W
- W
- W
- W
- D
- W
- W
- L
- L
- L
- L
- L
- L
Team News
© Reuters
Having been rested for Freiburg's midweek cup game, Jeong Woo-yeong and first-choice goalkeeper Mark Flekken are expected to be rotated back into the starting XI this weekend.
Streich will be without midfielder Roland Sallai, who will be sidelined for another month with a knee injury, and defender Jonathan Schmid, who is a week or two away from full fitness, but the manager has a fairly full squad to choose from.
The league's top-scoring substitute of all time, Nils Petersen is set to take his familiar place on the bench.
Greuther midfielder Paul Seguin's return following a one-match ban will come as welcome news to Leitl, and German-American attacker Timothy Tillman could also be reinstated in a bid to boost the goalscoring returns of Rangers loanee Cedric Itten and top scorer Branimir Hrgota.
Robin Kehr and Jessic Ngankam are long-term absences, whilst Havard Nielsen and Gideon Jung are still two to three weeks away from a return.
Freiburg possible starting lineup:
Flekken; Gulde, Lienhart, N. Schlotterbeck; Kubler, Eggestein, Hofler, Gunter; Jeong, Holer, Grifo
Greuther Furth possible starting lineup:
Funk; Meyerhofer, Bauer, Viergever, Willems; Seguin, Griesbeck, Dudziak; Tillman; Itten, Hrgota
We say: Freiburg 2-0 Greuther Furth
Whilst strange things can happen, perhaps in German football in particular - as shown by Bayern Munich's 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Borussia Monchengladbach during the week - there is very little to suggest anything but a comfortable Freiburg victory here. With a couple more shocks, and a huge swing in goal difference, they could even end the weekend top of the table.
Top tip
James Mackenzie
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Freiburg win with a probability of 54.45%. A win for Greuther Furth had a probability of 23.39% and a draw had a probability of 22.2%.
The most likely scoreline for a Freiburg win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.79%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (8.56%) and 2-0 (8.23%). The likeliest Greuther Furth win was 1-2 (6.06%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.18%). The actual scoreline of 3-1 was predicted with a 6.3% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Freiburg would win this match.
