RB Leipzig won the first title in its history this Saturday by beating Freiburg on penalties in the Cup final, after a 1-1 scoreline in regular time and extra time, after an epic fight in which they had to play with one man less from minute 59.
Leipzig started with a lineup that included neither Dani Olmo nor Angeliño. The coach, Domenico Tedesco, preferred to play with the Swedish Emile Forsberg in midfield and Marcel Halstenberg on the left wing.
On the Freiburg side there were no surprises in the line-up or in the approach since, due to the characteristics of the rival, a defense with three central defenders is expected.
The first came from Leipzig, in the 14th minute, when Forsberg slipped into the area from the left and released a shot that hit goalkeeper Mark Flekken’s body. The rebound went to Christopher Nkunku whose shot was blocked from a corner by the Freiburg defence.
Until that moment the teams had been almost completely neutralized. There had been no area plays and the two goalkeepers had been little more than two spectators.
In minute 19 Freiburg, on their first arrival, opened the scoring with a shot by Maximilian Eggenstein from outside the area.
The start of the play was a great pass from Vincenzo Grifo from the center line to Christian Günter who released a cross from the left wing to Sallai who, marked by Simakan, could not control the ball.
However, the rebound fell to Eggenstein who scored with a low shot. The goal generated some discussion as the ball had hit Sallai’s hand in the duel with Simakan, but the central referee, Sascha Stegemann, did not consider the action punishable.
In minute 24, Leipzig was close to equalizing after a string of errors by Leipzig. The last mistake was an attempt by Hofler to give Flekken the ball by combing it back and what he did was put Nkunku in position to shoot.
However, Nico Schlotterbeck saved almost on the line, when Flekken was already beaten.
In the remainder of the first half, Leipzig exerted some pressure but did not have clear chances. The pressure continued in the second half and in the first ten minutes it was almost suffocating, although there was only one arrival with a half-turn shot by Nkunku in the 50th minute that Flekken stopped.
However, in minute 59, the first time that Freiburg showed any real will to shake off Leipzig’s dominance, they manufactured a counterattack with a long ball from Grifo that left Lucas Höler with a free path to Peter Gulacsi’s goal after winning the back to Halstenberg.
Halstenberg had no other way out than committing a foul for which he was sent off with a direct red card.
The numerical inferiority made Leipzig’s pressure lessen and Freiburg began to have more of the game -in the 60th minute Sallai had a good counterattack chance- but the equalizer came in the 75th minute.
It all started with a cross into the area, after a free kick, which Willi Orban extended with a header to the second post where Nkunku appeared to define an empty goal.
The last minutes of regulation time were for Leipzig who overcame numerical inferiority and had two great chances, right at the feet of Dominique Szobozslai in the 82nd minute and Dani Olmo in the 85th minute who had come on from the bench in the second half.
Freiburg had two great chances in the first part of extra time. In both, in minute 91 with a header and in minute 105 with a left footed shot, Demirovic found the post.
However, those two occasions did not speak of a clear superiority of Freiburg in the middle of a phase marked by isolated and circumstantial plays.
In the second part of extra time it was the crossbar, in the 115th minute, that prevented Freiburg’s goal against a Marco Haberer shot.
In the other area there was controversy over a possible penalty against Dani Olmo that the referee did not initially sanction and then ruled out after consulting the VAR images.
Then came the penalties and Leipzig was rewarded for a fight in which everything seemed to be against them.
Christopher Nkunku, Willi Orban, Dani Olmo and Simakan scored their penalties for Freiburg while Christian Günther and Demirovic missed, one wide and the other hitting the crossbar.