A controversial late goal from Jan Rosenthal gave SC Freiburg a 1-0 victory at Eintracht Frankfurt on Friday for a third straight win and the club’s best start to the Bundesliga.
Rosenthal struck after a counterattack in the 89th minute to give Freiburg nine out of a possible 12 points from four rounds and their first victory in Frankfurt since March 1996.
However, TV replays suggested that the goal should have been ruled out for an offside earlier in the move.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Freiburg made a good start to an entertaining half with a powerful shot from Papiss Cisse being turned away by goalkeeper Oka Nikolov after six minutes, while Frankfurt’s Theo Gekas headed just over the crossbar following a free-kick in the 18th minute.
Frankfurt went close again on the half-hour mark, but Freiburg goalkeeper Oliver Baumann made a superb reaction save to keep out Benjamin Koehler’s header.
Further chances fell to Freiburg’s Heiko Butscher in the 35th minute and Frankfurt’s Patrick Ochs in the 40th minute.
There were fewer chances after the break, although Baumann only just managed to palm away a ball deflected by Freiburg defender Cedrick Makiadi after the hour mark.
Nikolov was then back in action at the other end with a fine save to stop Anton Putsila’s shot in the 69th minute.
Freiburg finally made the breakthrough with a late counterattack.
Cisse headed a long ball into the path of Maximilian Nicu, who ran through, before passing for Rosenthal to convert a simple chance for the winner, but replays indicated that Nicu was offside when he collected Cisse’s pass.
Freiburg coach Robin Dutt said: “We were very calm on the ball in the first half and really played a good away match. In the second half, things got a bit more wild, but at the end we kept our heads and grabbed our goal.”
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