SC Freiburg won their first match in the new Europa-Park-Stadion with 3:0 against FC St. Pauli. Grifo provided an extremely eye-catching opening goal in the friendly against the second-division leaders.
The first goal in the Europa-Park-Stadion could hardly have been more beautiful. Grifo received the ball from Günter on the half-left, looked up and then flicked the ball superbly into the far corner from the edge of the penalty area (17.). A perfectly formed goal – and it was not to remain Grifo’s only one: Twelve minutes after the first strike, the Italian international got into position again, fooled Wieckhoff and then once again scored with a fine foot into the right corner from a standing position (29.).
Loubongo-M’Boungou misses St. Pauli’s best chance
The preparatory work for the second goal had been done by Sildillia, mostly active in Freiburg’s third division team this season. Otherwise, the inaugural starting eleven also included several regular players. The situation was similar for St. Pauli, who also fielded a second-team player in attacker Loubongo-M’Boungou. The 20-year-old also had the biggest opportunity for the second-division club, but shot past the empty goal from a turn after a mistake by Freiburg keeper Uphoff (35th).
Uphoff, who was replacing Flekken in the SC goal for the Dutch national team, had also shown his skills beforehand, thwarting a double chance by Burgstaller and Ritzka (26). The first chances in the new arena in the opening phase had come from Burgstaller on one side (3rd) and Eggestein on the other (13th).
Fine, but irregular: Burkart heads in the 3:0
At the start of the second half, Grifo (48th) and Benatelli (54th) had two good chances, but the tempo slowed down a bit – also because both sides were busy changing players. Among others, Freiburg brought on young striker Burkart, who made it 3-0 just ten minutes after his substitution with an impressive header (68th) – however, the goal would probably not have counted under compulsory match conditions, as the ball had already crossed the baseline during Eggestein’s preparatory work.
In the final phase, Heintz (79th, just over) and Paqarada (81st, against the crossbar) attempted to score with a free kick and Höfler (86th, Smarsch saved) from distance – but Grifo was the only one to score. Because Smarsch made an excellent save against the SC youngster Engelhardt (89th), the score remained “only” 3:0 – but the result was secondary from Freiburg’s point of view anyway.
