Europa League duo eye Bundesliga revival
Freiburg - Matchday 8 draws to a close on Sunday evening with a head-on collision between the Bundesliga's two UEFA Europa League representatives SC Freiburg and Eintracht Frankfurt (kick-off 17:30 CET).
'Enormous quality'
Armin Veh's Eagles have fared reasonable well in balancing domestic and European affairs, but for Freiburg head coach Christian Streich, his two-pronged tilt is still to yield a win.
"We've come to the conclusion that the Bundesliga is our priority," affirmed Freiburg midfielder Julian Schuster. "Frankfurt have enormous quality, but like us have the same workload. Of course, we want to pick up points at home on Sunday and land our first win."
Freiburg's inability to come up with the winning goods in seven attempts so far in the Bundesliga means they go into Sunday's meeting as the division's bottom club, trailing their visitors by five points.
'Fantastic football'
"They're [Eintracht] a great team that have really come on under Rainer Geyer and Armin Veh," explained Streich. "They play fantastic football and have good individuals, but it goes without saying that we'll be giving it everything within the laws of the game on Sunday. We'll put everything into it because it would be wonderful to go into the international break with six points on the board."
Streich's preparations haven't been helped by injuries to Vladimir Darida, Vaclav Pilar, Mensur Mujdza, Vegar Eggen Hedenstad and Marco Terrazzino, while defender Fallou Diagne misses out through suspension. To that end, Pavel Krmas or Immanuel Höhn could start in defence, with the coach yet to make a concrete decision on his starting XI: "We have to make up our mind."
'Taking it seriously'
For their part, Frankfurt have been ticking along rather nicely in Europe, arguably at the expense of their customary Bundesliga deeds, with their pre-matchday 13th-place station a far cry from last term's odds-defying top-six finish.
"We're happy to be competing in Europe," beamed Eintracht's head coach Veh. "We're taking it seriously. It helps when you enjoy success because then you can recuperate quicker [...] Unfortunately, we haven't got enough points to show for our performances in the league. So that's why it is important we get something from the Freiburg game."
Possible line-ups:
Freiburg: Baumann - Sorg, Krmas, Ginter, C. Günter - Fernandes, Schuster - Schmid, Coquelin - Mehmedi - Hanke
Frankfurt: Trapp - S. Jung, Zambrano, Anderson, Oczipka - Russ - Rode, Flum - Barnetta - Lakic, Kadlec
Christopher Mayer-Lodge
Freiburg goalkeeper Oliver Baumann will hope to frustrate the Frankfurt frontline with saves like this one on the Bundesliga's official YouTube channel:
