It was the Czechs’ day on this Sunday outing for the Bundesliga leaders, who have now been undefeated for 38 competitive games. Bayer 04 Leverkusen also solved the not so easy task against ninth-placed SC Freiburg with a 3-2 win thanks to goals from German international Florian Wirtz (2nd minute) and his Czech colleagues Adam Hlozek (40th) and Patrik Schick (43rd). ) with goals conceded by Ritsu Doan (10th). and Yannik Keitel (79th).
Coach Xabi Alonso’s ensemble continues to circle at a lonely height with a ten point lead over defending champions Bayern Munich and is getting closer and closer to the title.
The Freiburg team had surprisingly quickly dealt with their heavy 5-0 defeat in the second leg of the round of 16 at West Ham United and thus their elimination from the Europa League competition in a positive way. The Leverkusen team, who were one round further into the same competition thanks to a last-minute win over Qarabag Agdam, did not seem at all exhausted after the show of strength in Thursday’s 3-2 win after being 2-0 down, apart from a few minor lapses in concentration.
Bayer remained true to its determined station football and, as always, waited for the opponent to make mistakes. The Breisgauers committed this after around a minute, when neither Ginter nor Höfler could stop Bayer’s young star Wirtz, so that his diagonal shot hit the Freiburg goal to make it 1-0.
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The SCF was unimpressed and set its own tone with its early counter-pressing, which Doan took advantage of to make it 1-1 a short time later. After that, a fast-paced encounter developed before the break, in which Freiburg even had the better opportunities.
But the Rhinelanders scored the goal to make it 2-1, benefiting from a mistake by Freiburg goalkeeper Atubolu. The beneficiary was the Czech attacker Hlozek, who had a clear path to score in conjunction with his more prominent compatriot Schick.
The Czech, who was the man of the game against Qarabag with his two goals in stoppage time, easily made it 3-1 from Frimpong’s cross at the start of the second half. This Sunday’s game was decided, even if Yannik Keitel reduced the score to 2:3 with the help of goalkeeper Hradecky (79th), and Bayer 04 were once again the winners of the matchday.
