Freiburg leapfrog Leverkusen into third after late Schade goal

Freiburg ended the year on a high by moving above opponents Bayer Leverkusen into third in the Bundesliga after substitute Kevin Schade sealed a late 2-1 home win on Sunday.

Freiburg took the lead on 33 minutes after Jeremie Frimpong's handball in the box. Vincenzo Grifo netted with the chipped 'Panenka' penalty though Lukas Hradecky almost got a hand to the cheeky effort.

Leverkusen hit back on the stroke of half-time when Jonathan Tah's overhead kick following a corner was nodded in by Charles Aranguiz.

But Freiburg just about deserved the win, with 20-year-old Schade sneaking in to score at the near post on 84 minutes following a cross from fellow substitute Ermedin Demirovic.

Hradecky could maybe have done better to deny Schade his second of the league season.

Surprise packages Freiburg have never been higher in the Bundesliga at the turn of the year, with Leverkusen slipping to the fourth and final Champions League spot ahead of the three-week mid-season break.

"I believe we played a good game against a strong Leverkusen side. I think we deserved to win," Freiburg captain Christian Guenter told DAZN.

"I think we can be very proud. The team is hungry, we can look back on a very good first half of the season but we want to stay hungry."

Mid-table Cologne later beat third-bottom Stuttgart 1-0 in the final German top-flight match this year.

The hosts had goals ruled out for handball and offside before Anthony Modeste netted with a superb header with just a minute remaining, leaving the visitors in the relegation play-off spot.

The Bundesliga resumes from its traditional break on the weekend beginning January 7.

Freiburg are now just five points behind second-placed Borussia Dortmund, who lost 3-2 at mid-table Hertha Berlin on Saturday to slip nine points behind Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich at the halfway mark of the season. Leverkusen are a point adrift of Freiburg.

Champions Bayern, who had already made sure of being top going into 2022, beat Wolfsburg 4-0 at home on Friday with Robert Lewandowski setting a record of 43 Bundesliga goals in a calendar year.

Freiburg, with just 750 fans allowed in their new stadium due to Covid-19 rules, made most of the running in the first half but ran out of steam slightly in the second before finding a winner out of nowhere.

Fitful Leverkusen, beaten 5-2 at Eintracht Frankfurt last weekend before a midweek draw with Hoffenheim, were generally poor.

Striker Patrik Schick, with 16 goals this term, never had a sniff.

They will hope their roller-coaster ride under coach Gerardo Seoane settles down after the holidays and they can offer more consistency to secure a top-four spot.

Seoane said: "We started very badly and allowed them too much space. The second half was better. At 2-1 we lost our way and couldn't turn the game around.

"We haven't had enough energy lately, and we've had to overcome a few personnel problems. But basically I'm satisfied with the first half of the season - even if we could have scored one or two more points."