Freiburg, Hamburg share spoils in Bundesliga

SC Freiburg and Hamburg SV shared the spoils following a goalless stalemate in their German football league clash here.

Both struggling clubs failed to grab a victory on Friday, although both were in need of vital points to climb out of the Bundesliga bottom places, reports Xinhua news agency.

Freiburg and Hamburg started highly motivated into the encounter to ensure an evenly balanced opening period.

Freiburg's Christian Guenter created the first chance of the game after rattling the side netting before Hamburg's Aaron Hunt tested goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow from ten meters with 18 minutes played.

As the match progressed, Freiburg took over and tried to take the lead with long-range efforts, which missed the target mostly.

However, Hamburg ensured the best chance of the first half when youngster Jann-Foete Arp intercepted a return pass but chipped the ball just wide of the target from sharp angle in the 42nd minute.

Freiburg grabbed the better start in the second half as Hamburg defender Kyriakos Papadopoulos had to scratch Janik Haberer's shot on target off the goal line 50 minutes into the game.

Three minutes later, the home side celebrated the opener. However, Yoric Ravet's opener was disallowed due to an offside position.

In the closing stages, Freiburg kept the upper hand but lacked in accuracy to wrap up a very needed victory against harmless visitors from Hamburg.

"We reached only our minimum target. We were looking for more than one point but we know that Freiburg is very resilient. Freiburg was closer to the lucky punch in the second half," Hamburg's goalkeeper Christian Mathenia said.

With this result, Freiburg remain at the 16th place, which is a relegation play-off spot, while Hamburg continue at the 15th position with a two-point gap to the relegation spots.

--IANS

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