Freiburg vs Borussia Monchengladbach Predictions, Betting Tips, & Match Preview

Freiburg finished top of the 2. Bundesliga by five points last season and coach Christian Streich – the man who guided them into the UEFA Europa League in extraordinary fashion in 2013 – is still at the helm of an exciting, youthful team which will be boosted by the return of striker Nils Petersen after his time representing Germany in Rio for the Olympic Games. The main question for Freiburg ahead of this season is whether they can stay up. Coach Christian Streich is certainly still the right man to mastermind a survival bid, but whether the same core of players that went down two campaigns ago can avoid a prolonged relegation battle remains to be seen. Freiburg’s opening Bundesliga match away to Hertha Berlin ended in disappointment, losing 2-1 to a 95th minute goal after equalising in the 93rd minute, and they have every reason to be concerned with the task ahead of them here.

Borussia M’gladbach stood within the relegation zone after six matches of the 2015/16 campaign, a feat they don’t look to repeat coming into the new season. The hosts are a team reborn since Andre Schubert replaced Lucien Favre as coach last September. A change which saw them end the season fourth overall in the Bundesliga and the third highest scoring team in the division. The question now is whether the five-time Bundesliga champions can emulate their 1970s glory years and re-establish themselves as a permanent fixture in the upper tier of the top flight. M’gladbach have some of the most promising young players in the Bundesliga and the permenant signing return of FIFA World Cup winner Christoph Kramer has lifted spirits, after captain Granit Xhaka departed to Arsenal earlier this summer. Borussia M’gladbach have been running riot with a 2-1 win at home to Bayer Leverkusen in their opener and after their 9-2 aggregate win over Young Boys in the UEFA Champions League playoff round – confidence should be high heading into this match.

Though Freiburg were unlucky not to take anything away from their trip to Berlin, hosting giants Borussia M’gladbach is an incomparable challenge. The South Germans may take solace in their strong home form and Borussia M’gladbach’s poor away form from last season, but we feel the bookies price on the visitors here is about right. Freiburg are simply not on the same level as M’gladbach and we don’t think they’ll be able to handle the visitor’s offensive pressure. Players such as Andre Hahn, Lars Stindl and Raffael are consistently causing opponents trouble as an attacking trio. Brazilian centre forward Raffael was involved in five of their six goals against Young Boys (a hat-trick and two assists) and he is also the only player, other than Borussia Dortmund’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan, to register double figures for both goals and assists in 2015/16. Given his recent performances we think he is certain to continue that form this season. M’gladbach likely consider the “curse” of their poor away run in the Bundesliga lifted since their 1-1 draw away to Bayern Munich at the end of last season. Since then, they have won their last ten matches on the road (one Bundesliga win, eight club friendly wins, one UEFA Champions League win and one DFB Pokal win).

M’gladbach’s “all out attack” approach with their 3-4-1-2 formation does, however, often leave them exposed at the back. Freiburg will look upon striker Nils Petersen, who scored twenty-one goals in the 2. Bundesliga last season and has top flight experience (9 goals in 19 appearances with Freiburg in 2014/2015), to capitalise on this for what we feel will be a consolation goal.

As such, we expect Borussia M’gladbach to win at 1/1 and M’gladbach to win 3-1 at 14/1 with bet365 to be top value bets for this match.