After three league games without defeat, Viktoria Cologne has suffered a setback. The Cologne team had little to counter the playfully strong SC Freiburg II.
Viktoria lost 0:3 (0:1) at the end of the 24th matchday on Monday evening. With eleven points ahead of the relegation zone and twelve points behind the promotion places, Cologne is eleventh in the “no man’s land” of the table. Freiburg II consolidated second place, but cannot move up.
Compared to the last league game in Dresden (1-1), Viktoria’s coach Olaf Janßen made a change: Moritz Fritz replaced Lars Dietz.
Cologne lucky with double post
Freiburg had more of the game from the start and often pushed Cologne into their own half, but there weren’t any noteworthy chances on either side at first. In the 17th minute, Julian Guttau tried to win a penalty in a duel with Cologne’s Jamil Siebert, but referee Patrick Schwengers showed the Freiburg player a yellow card for his crystal-clear swallow.
Cologne were lucky when they had the first good chance of the game: after a corner from Freiburg, the ball landed with Kimberly Ezekwem (26′), whose shot from 18 meters smacked the left and then the right inside post. Just two minutes later, Guttau (28′) headed over the Viktoria-Tor from a corner. Cologne tried again and again to counterattack, but didn’t get through.
Guttau achieves a deserved lead for Freiburg
The technically and playfully strong Freiburg team deservedly took the lead seven minutes before half-time. In an attack worth seeing, Mika Baur, who was positioned on the edge of the penalty area, put his heel down on Guttau (38th), who hit the bottom left corner from about ten meters.
With the last action of the first half, Cologne became dangerous: Robin Meißner (45th) put a follow-up shot from a corner just wide of the left post.
Freiburg increased after the break by Treu
In the second half Freiburg had the next good chances. First, Vincent Vermeij narrowly undercut a cross from Guttenau (54′), then Cologne keeper Ben Voll parried a header from Vermeij (58′) in dire need on the line. Voll was also able to fend off a long-range shot by Robert Wagner, but Philipp Treu (60th) increased the lead to 2-0 with the follow-up shot.
Freiburg then left the game to Cologne and waited for a counterattack. Cologne improved, but couldn’t get through against the well-organized SC defense. In the 75th minute, Vermeij ran alone towards the Viktoria goal and tried to overtake Voll, but the keeper prevented the 0:3 with another lightning reaction
Vermeij makes the decision
But this fell a few minutes later – this time Voll was powerless. After a blunder by Michael Schultz, Vermeij (81′) sprinted towards Voll again alone and already put the ball into the bottom right corner to make it 3-0. Freiburg had more good chances until the end of the game.
