28.02.2010

Borussia held at home by Freiburg

A Roel Brouwers equaliser twenty minutes from time salvaged a point for Borussia at home to SC Freiburg on Saturday afternoon, with VfL ultimately forced to settle for a 1-1 draw.

Unsurprisingly, Borussia kept faith in the line-up which drew 2-2 away to Hoffenheim last weekend, but as widely reported beforehand, visiting Freiburg made a raft of changes, with Krmas, Makiadi, Idrissou, Jäger and Caligiuri all restored to the team. Coming into the game on a poor run of results, Freiburg were initially intent on maintaining their discipline and showed strictly limited attacking ambition. VfL frequently moved the ball wide in an effort to unpick the packed visiting defence, with Juan Arango and Marco Reus offering encouraging early touches.

The first chance of the match duly came from a move down the right flank on 17 minutes. Reus exchanged passes with Tobias Levels before cutting inside and shooting at goal, Freiburg keeper Pouplin electing to push the ball away for a corner. Nine minutes later, Raul Bobadilla expertly controlled a high ball and teed up Roberto Colautti, but Pouplin parried the Israeli’s left-foot drive. Borussia were contributing more ideas and vitality to the match, but were unable to cause the Freiburg rearguard more than a handful of problems in the first half. The home side’s set pieces also lacked a cutting edge, typified by Dante’s header straight at the Freiburg keeper from a Reus corner. In a flurry of action on the stroke of half-time, Michael Bradley fizzed a 20-yard shot just past the upright and Juan Arango warmed Pouplin’s gloves from a direct free-kick. Aside from an Idrissou effort which cleared the bar midway through the half, the Borussia defence had the visiting forwards under control in the first period.

Cissé catches Borussia cold

Raul Bobadilla spearheaded a lively Borussia start to the second period. The Argentine striker shot at goal no fewer than three times in the first five minutes after the restart, with varying results. For the first chance, he ran on to Filip Daems’ pass but fired against the outside of the post. Pouplin then somehow clawed Bobadilla’s 18-yard shot on the turn away from the top corner of the net, and the third effort was deflected away for a corner. Just as the Borussia pressure appeared certain to pay off, Freiburg caught the home side totally on the hop: Felix Bastians swung over a cross from the right for Papiss Cissé to outjump the defence and head home the 56th-minute opener, more or less entirely against the run of play.

Borussia angrily poured forward in search of the equaliser and began creating chances, only for luck to desert them in front of goal. Bastians hacked Bradley’s 63rd-minute shot off the line, and Colautti fired wide a minute later. It was the striker’s last touch of the afternoon, as coach Michael Frontzeck brought on Rob Friend and Karim Matmour to bolster his team’s attacking efforts. Borussia kept up the pressure, and were ultimately rewarded when Juan Arango’s superb cross on 72 minutes was met with a firm header by centre-back Roel Brouwers for a fully merited equaliser. Matmour almost produced a carbon copy goal six minutes later from a Bobadilla cross, but nodded wide of the target. The Algerian was in the thick of the action again two minutes later: Rob Friend delivered a sublime lay-off from a high ball, but Matmour shanked his drive wide from just ten yards. In the closing stages, Bobadilla’s 82nd-minute shot and Friend’s last-minute header both drifted too high.

Despite a spirited second-half display and enough chances to win, Borussia were in the end forced to settle for a single point.

Borussia: Bailly – Levels, Brouwers, Dante, Daems – Meeuwis (Matmour 65), Bradley – Reus, Arango – Bobadilla, Colautti (Friend 65).

Freiburg: Pouplin - Barth, Krmas (Cha 76), Toprak, Bastians - Banovic, Caligiuri (Bechmann 76) – Makiadi (Schuster 80), Jäger - Idrissou, Cissé.

Goals: 0-1 Cissé (56), 1-1 Brouwers (72)

Yellow cards: Matmour - Pouplin

Attendance: 40,419

Referee: Peter Sippel