Preview
Mr SimpleRight, so here we are. SC Freiburg at home against FC Schalke 04, and if you've been following the form books, this one looks like it's got a bit of a one-sided flavour to it.
Freiburg have been absolutely flying. Four wins and a draw in their last five, and if you zoom out to the last ten, it's nine wins and one draw — not a single defeat. They're scoring 3.3 a game and conceding just 0.8. At home specifically, over 20 games, they've won 15, drawn 2, lost 3, and they're putting 2.65 past the full-backs per game. That 5–0 over Borussia Mönchengladbach on 12 September (with a red card to boot) and the 4–1 over Werder Bremen on 30 August show just how comfortable they are in front of their own crowd.
Now, Schalke on the other hand... well, let's put it this way. Two wins, two draws, one loss in their last five. They've scored just 4 goals in that stretch and failed to score in three of those games. Two 0–0 draws — one against Bayern München on 5 September and one against SV Elversberg on 20 September. Their away record over 20 games is 10W 5D 5L, which isn't terrible in the numbers, but their recent away form has been patchy — that 0–3 loss at FC Augsburg on 30 August (with a red card to make it worse) tells you a lot.
The head-to-head here is all historical — the last meeting was back in April 2023, and before that it goes back to 2012. So I won't lean on that. What I will say is that in those older meetings, Freiburg won all five, and at their ground it was 4–0 three times. But that's three to six years ago, so it's more of a curiosity than a guide.
The counter-argument? Well, Schalke have won 10 of their last 20 away games and kept 7 clean sheets in that stretch. They're not a team that just rolls over. And Freiburg's one draw in the last five was a 2–2 at Eintracht Frankfurt, which shows they can be pegged back. But honestly, the gap in current form is hard to ignore.
Key Points:
- SC Freiburg are unbeaten in their last 10 games (9W 1D), scoring 3.3 per game
- At home over 20 games, Freiburg have won 15, drawn 2, lost 3
- FC Schalke 04 have failed to score in 3 of their last 5 and drawn two 0–0s
- Schalke's away record over 20 games is 10W 5D 5L, but their last away result was a defeat
- The head-to-head is entirely historical (last meeting April 2023), so current form is the real story
My verdict: I'm going with the SC Freiburg home win at 1.71. The form gap is too big to ignore, and the home record backs it up.