Fortuna beat Freiburg for Rösler’s first win

Freiburg 0-2 Fortuna Düsseldorf
Goals: 0-1 Hoffmann (37‘), 0-2 Thommy (61‘)

Düsseldorf had the ball in the net early on when Thommy’s low cross was deflected by two Freiburg players and then in off a defender at the far post, but it was ruled out with Matthias Zimmermann in an offside position. Set-piece specialist Vincenzo Grifo tested Florian Kastenmeier with a free-kick before Rouwen Hennings produced a good reaction save from Alexander Schwolow. The visitors went ahead from the ensuing corner, though, when Hoffmann powered home a header. Grifo had another effort from a free-kick, but again Zack Steffen’s deputy was on hand for a comfortable stop.

Christian Streich sent on Freiburg’s all-time top scorer Nils Petersen for the second half, and the hosts appeared much livelier, but they were punished by a counter-attack from their own corner. Thommy ran three-quarters of the pitch before lifting the ball beyond Schwolow to double Fortuna's lead with his fourth goal of the season. The hosts upped the pressure again after that - Petersen, Nicolas Höfler, Luca Waldschmidt and Robin Koch all had half-chances - but to no avail. Rösler's side held on for their first league win of 2020 and, although still in the relegation play-off position, have put three points between themselves and Werder Bremen in the automatic relegation spots.

• Hoffmann’s goal was his first in the Bundesliga since 26 April 2013, with Hannover against Greuther Fürth, and ended his run of 64 top-flight games without scoring.
• Thommy has now scored in back-to-back Bundesliga games for the first time.
• His four goals this campaign double his previous personal best in an entire Bundesliga season.
• Düsseldorf have claimed points from four of their five Bundesliga visits to Freiburg (W2, D2). This was the first time they didn’t go 1-0 down in this fixture.
• This was the first time in 2020 that Fortuna scored two goals in a Bundesliga game. They’d scored just three in their previous five.
• This was Düsseldorf’s first clean sheet in their 10th competitive fixture against Freiburg. It also ended their 12-match run without a Bundesliga clean sheet.

Watch: Florian Kastenmeier: "I think I'm doing a good job in place of Zack Steffen"

Freiburg: Schwolow - Schmid, Gulde (Heintz 82’), Koch, Günter (c) – Kwon (Petersen 46’), Haberer, Höfler, Grifo (Sallai 67’) – Höler, Waldschmidt
Unused subs: Flekken, Lienhart, Schlotterbeck, Borrello, Itter, Tempelmann
Out: Abrashi (muscular), Kübler (knee)
Coach: Christian Streich 

Fortuna: Kastenmeier - Ayhan, Hoffmann (Zanka 77’), Suttner (Gießelmann 20’) - Zimmermann, Bodzek (c), Stöger, Berisha (Morales 67’), Thommy - Karaman, Hennings
Unused subs: Okoye, Ofori, Skrzybski, Ampomah, Sobottka, Zimmer
Out: Kownacki (knee), Steffen (knee)
Coach: Uwe Rösler