Freiburg vs Wolfsburg

Freiburg and Wolfsburg are set to trade tackles in a high-stakes Bundesliga encounter at the Europa-Park Stadion.

These are dark times for Freiburg, who, after crashing out of the DFB-Pokal in the semi-finals, suffered back-to-back defeats in the Bundesliga to start this round three points adrift of fourth-placed Union Berlin. Despite securing Europa League qualification for the second season running, Christian Streich’s men will hope to bridge the gap in the last two rounds. Having only lost two home league matches this calendar year (W4, D3, L2), ‘Breisgau-Brasilianer’ will relish their chances in this match-up, even though both those defeats came against top-six sides. The hosts have kept a league joint-high 12 clean sheets this season and are one shutout away from equalling the club record in the top flight. But it’s worth noting they lost 6-0 in the reverse fixture in January.

In the meantime, visiting Wolfsburg bounced back from a humiliating 6-0 defeat away to Borussia Dortmund with a 2-1 home win over TSG Hoffenheim last weekend, leapfrogging Bayer Leverkusen into the final European qualification spot. That woeful result at Signal Iduna Park saw Niko Kovac’s team concede as many goals as in their previous nine Bundesliga away games combined (6). However, despite winning three of their last four league outings (L1), ‘Die Wolfe’ cannot rest easy as they sit level on points with Leverkusen at the start of this round. There’s another reason for concern, with Wolfsburg going winless in their last four top-flight visits to Freiburg (D2, L2), including a goal-glutted 3-2 defeat in this corresponding fixture in 2021/22.