Was hat denn der SC Freiburg gut gemacht?

Zunächst einmal hat der SC Freiburg es sehr, sehr gut ausgenutzt, ähm, diese mannorientierte Spielweise von Mönchengladbach auszuhebeln, wobei ich da vielleicht sogar noch einen Schritt weiter vorne anfangen muss.

Es gab natürlich verschiedene Phasen in diesem Spiel aufgrund der roten Karte.

Ab, ähm, Minute fünfundfünfzig ungefähr war das Spiel dann sowieso gebrochen, aber davor natürlich, Gladbach hat so ein bisschen gependelt zwischen aggressivem Pressing und vier zwei drei eins Pressing, wo sich Kleindienst, ähm, mehr oder weniger einen Wolf gelaufen ist zwischen den Innenverteidigern.

Ähm, ich hatte dann sogar mir aufgeschrieben, vielleicht hat er auch keine Lust mehr gehabt, ständig den Innenverteidigern hinterherzulaufen.

Deswegen hat er innerhalb von einer Minute erst, äh, Ginter übern Haufen gelaufen und dann hat er das Foul an, äh, Lienhardt begangen und hat die Gelb-Rote gesehen.

Ein bisschen spaßig, aber na also Kleindienst musste sich da schon zu Tode laufen vorne, was natürlich auch jetzt etwas undankbar ist, äh, für einen Mittelstürmer, der natürlich da mehr hinterherläuft als alles andere.

Das haben wir auch gesehen, ne.

What about his style? Obviously he comes from the Red Bull school, doesn't he? So is it too easy to say it's, it's the high pressing, it's the intensity, it's the possession-based football that we've come to know from, from Red Bull? And do you think that will translate into the Premier League?

So that's also something that, uh, separates him from some of the other, uh, Red Bull style coaches.

Um, he changed his style once he, uh, went from Salzburg to Al Ahli.

Played a different brand of football, basically.

Still very intensity-based.

I think the, one of the main ingredients, uh, when it comes to, uh, Jaissle's football is intensity, and I think that's also a big advantage.

I will come back to the point in a second.

Do you think he can cope with that?

[laughs]

To describe my, my mood yesterday.

I mean, of course, it was a mix, uh, between being stunned, uh, by actually, uh, seeing Germany being eliminated by, uh, Paraguay.

I mean, all due respect to Paraguay, they play a tough style of football and it was, it was known that they, uh, would be tough to, uh, to beat, but still, I mean, you would expect them to be beaten by that Germany side.

Uh, with all the problems that, uh, Germany might, uh, have right now as a national team at least, um, but still, um, so being stunned, but then also being a bit angry about things that haven't really, uh, gotten the correct way in the past couple of weeks or maybe in the past couple of years because we now see a pattern.

It's, uh, three World Cups in a row that Germany actually didn't win a knockout game.

I mean, they at least made it to the knockout stage, but they didn't win a game.

Were you not happy, Constantin?

You never stop, do you?

Laurent Blanc was one of my favorite players actually as a [laughs] very young fan following the tournament when Germany were, um, eliminated by Croatia, by the way, in the quarterfinals.

But coming back to your question, of course, um, I don't really believe there is a clear-cut identity.

Of course, possession football and attacking football has become an identity of Germany, but even yesterday, um, we just, uh, discussed a little bit about, uh, discussed a little bit Germany's approach, and Nagelsmann before that game said, uh, they need to combat Paraguay's physicality, how hard they play the game.

So they have to combat that with also toughness.

That's why he left Musiala out of the starting 11 and brought in Dennis Undav to have, have more presence, have more presence inside the penalty area.

But that also tells you something, right? It tells you, all right, we adjust our style to an extent, at least our starting lineup.

What happens now?

Where has Dennis Undav come from?

Well, seemingly out of nowhere.

Not quite, but, uh, until 2020, only played fourth division, third division football.

Then he moved to the second division in Belgium, uh, Union Saint-Gilloise, who are now of course a top team in Belgium, but, uh, he joined them when they were in the second division.

A year later he was the top scorer in Belgium, then he moved to Brighton.

Didn't get any foot in the door basically there, and, and now he's at Stuttgart.

But yeah, he's, he's, he comes seemingly out of nowhere.

Yeah.

What can you tell us about the club?

Yeah, they finished seventh, so they at least are qualified for the Conference League for next season.

But of course, they want to achieve more.

I think the club is not that well known, of course, internationally, but they were first promoted at Bundesliga in 1993.

And they are kind of the proverbial underdogs, in a sense, because...

It's a somewhat smaller club from the southwest, right there at the German-French, German-Swiss border.

So a little bit outside of the center of Germany, basically.

Constantin, will Freiburg and the club's fan base and players be aware of that and the Aston Villa story? Do Freiburg consider themselves underdogs?