Freiburg seal Europa League Round of 16 spot despite maiden defeat

Freiburg’s unbeaten run in the Europa League came to an end in Lille, but they clinched an automatic Round of 16 spot.

With five changes from the team that started the 2-1 win over Köln, Julian Schuster once again rotated his squad to deal with the fixture congestion at the start of the new year. They had very little going for them in the final third, but Lille were hardly enterprising themselves in a lifeless first-half encounter.

Hákon Arnar Haraldsson had the first attempt of the game at the midpoint of the half, but there was no shot on target at either end. Lille’s Portuguese fullback Tiago Santos was the biggest concern for Freiburg’s defense.

Freiburg actually climbed to second in the live table at the start of the second half with Aston Villa losing at home to RB Salzburg. However, they were quickly back to third when Midtjylland took the lead against Dinamo Zagreb.

Knowing a goal would instantly send them top, Freiburg had a couple of great chances early in the second half. Junior Adamu couldn’t capitalize on Nathan Ngoy’s mistake before missing an even better chance from a counterattacking move.

At the other end, Matías Fernández-Pardo faced Noah Atubolu one-on-one, but his attempt to chip the young goalkeeper failed miserably. The Spain U21 international was also involved in the next big moment of the game as Maximilian Eggestein saw a straight red card for a harsh foul on him.

It was the first sending off for Eggestein after making more than 500 appearances in senior football. In search of a winning goal, Bruno Génésio introduced the World Cup winner Olivier Giroud for the last ten minutes of the game.

Freiburg had no shots on target until the red card, which made them even more cautious in the closing stage of the game. The lively Fernández-Pardo continued to cause trouble for Freiburg with his dribbling as substitute Cyriaque Irié conceded an injury-time penalty-kick.

Giroud duly converted the penalty to secure Lille’s first win of 2026. With that, Freiburg’s unbeaten run ended as Viktoria Plzeň finished as the only undefeated team in the league phase.

Freiburg are still automatically through to the Round of 16 as they finish in seventh place in the league phase. They will play away at Stuttgart on matchday 20 of the Bundesliga. Sebastian Hoeneß’s side booked a spot in the play-offs of the Europa League with a 3-2 win over Young Boys.