Sandhausen vs Freiburg

Hardtwaldstadion is the venue as Sandhausen and Freiburg go head-to-head in an exciting DFB-Pokal round-of-16 tie.

Sandhausen launched their DFB-Pokal adventure with an overwhelming 4-0 triumph at fourth-tier Schwarz-Weiß Rehden but needed a nerve-shredding penalty shootout to dispatch fellow 2. Bundesliga rivals Karlsruher in the last round after an action-packed 2-2 draw. Despite posting a morale-boosting 2-1 win at Arminia Bielefeld upon the club football resumption in January, the hosts come into this fixture on the back of a humiliating 4-0 home defeat to Darmstadt last time out. That hardly bodes well for Sandhausen as they bid to oust Freiburg from the DFB-Pokal for the second time in seven years after beating them on penalties in 2016. Other than that success, they have lost their two remaining encounters against this opposition in the 21st century, going down by multi-goal margins on both occasions.

On the other hand, visiting Freiburg have already gone past two second-tier rivals in this season’s DFB-Pokal, overcoming Kaiserslautern and St. Pauli via an identical 2-1 scoreline after extra-time. Last season’s beaten finalists should be confident about continuing their cup journey despite Christian Streich’s ten-man side slumping to a disastrous 5-1 Bundesliga defeat to Borussia Dortmund at the weekend. Indeed, a cup distraction may serve well for Freiburg, considering they’ve failed to impress since the Bundesliga return in 2023, going winless in three of their four league outings since the turn of the year (D1, L2). But with three of those four matches featuring over 3.5 goals, the Hardtwaldstadion crowd may be in for a treat.