On matchday 18, fans of the German football top flight, the German Bundesliga, will be treated to VfB Stuttgart vs SC Freiburg.
This reverse fixture is important to the aims of both teams, who came into the season with different goals and have now had to adapt (in Freiburg’s case) and adjust (in Stuttgart’s case) those goals.
Die Schwaben won 23 games and lost only seven with eight draws to finish in second place behind Bayer Leverkusen 04 after the 2023/24 season. Both teams ensured that Bayern Munich would finish in third place for the first time in more than a decade. This finish also earned them a return to the UEFA Champions League. Although they would part ways with key players, their goal was to maintain the same level and if possible, snag a trophy.
Now, it will take all they have to not finish outside the top 10 come May 2025.
For the Breisgau Brazilians, a top-10 finish is all they could muster after the 2023/24 season wrapped up. They finished 10th, in fact, and set a goal to be better than finish. Now, it will take an act of God to prevent them from achieving this goal.
Stuttgart are struggling to win games which has seen them languish in mid-table while Freiburg are flying, even defeating and drawing against teams that halted their progress last time and pushing ahead of them.
One may attribute it to the new manager bounce which teams enjoy when a new manager is at the helm. Christian Streich retired from management after the 2023/24 season, leading the Breisgau Brazilians to appoint Julian Schuster. It did not look like the bounce was in effect at first, because Stuttgart, who they faced on matchday 1, went ahead of them in just two minutes. The goal came exquisitely too, with Ermedin Demirović directing an acrobatic scissor kick into the bottom-right corner.
Stuttgart dominated possession after that, making Schuster—Freiburg’s first manager since 2010/11 when Streich first took to their dugout—look bad. But Lukas Kübler saved his blushes to draw them level and reset the game. They grew in confidence after that goal and nearly got ahead, only to be denied by Alexander Nübel on the stroke of halftime.
Nine minutes into the second half, Japanese midfielder Ritsu Dōan scored a scrappy second and Kübler got their third goal seven minutes later, this time, rising highest to direct his header inside the left post of Nübel’s goal.
Sebastian Hoeneß has not learned his lesson, it seems, as Stuttgart continues to struggle. This reverse fixture could be what he needs to right the path of the club in 2024/25.
Below is the team news, prediction on the starting XIs of both teams, prediction on the scoreline, and the matchday ticket information.
Match tickets
Neckarstadion, officially known as MHPArena for sponsorship reasons, will host this matchday 18 clash.
Fans can purchase their VfB Stuttgart vs SC Freiburg tickets from VfB Stuttgart’s website and SC Freiburg’s website. Fans of either club are best served purchasing from the website, official channels, and partner platforms of the club they support and are registered with else they stand a chance of missing out on watching this match live.
It is important to note that being a registered fan does not guarantee a seat at the game. Matchday tickets across Europe are balloted for, which means that only inquiries made within a specific time frame will be entered into the ballot and tickets allocated to those who enquired before the ballots began.
Non-registered fans who do not want to join a waitlist can visit ticket resale websites to buy VfB Stuttgart tickets or SC Freiburg tickets from other fans. Tourists who are in Stuttgart, Germany, and want to witness a football match can get their tickets this way as well. This also applies to non-local fans of either club who want to travel to watch the game and are looking to escape the ballots.
Team news
Everything that could go wrong for VfB Stuttgart is going wrong for them. After starting the season brightly with a few changes to the squad that almost went all the way in the 2023/24 German Bundesliga title race, they began to fall off as the pressure of handling both the high-level football of the UEFA Champions League and the increasing intensity of the German Bundesliga was a lot for them to handle. Then the injuries started to roll in, leaving manager Hoeneß with a thin squad to achieve the club’s 2024/25 season objectives. Ahead of this matchday 18 clash, Die Schwaben currently has six first-team players out including top scorer Deniz Undav.
The other injured players are Dan-Axel Zagadou, Luca Raimund, Jamie Leweling, El Bilal Touré, and Ameen Al-Dakhil. Hoeneß is even in more of a pinch because he has two center-forwards out of commission (the second being Touré), with both not returning to training until a week or two before the Freiburg clash.
Freiburg, meanwhile, has only the fitness of right-winger Eren Dinkçi to worry about. The German is set to return to training in the first week of January which means he could be ready for the trip to Stuttgart later in the month.
Both teams are still in the winter transfer market and it is unlikely that we will be seeing any debuts on the day.
Line-ups
Here is what we expect both teams’ starting XIs to look like for this match.
VfB Stuttgart: Nubel; Vagnoman, Rouault, Chabot, Mittelstadt; Karazor, Stiller; Rieder, Millot, Fuhrich; Demirovic.
SC Freiburg: Atubolu; Kubler, Ginter, Lienhart, Gunter; Eggestein, Höfler; Doan, Holer, Grifo; Gregoritsch.
Prediction
The form guides of both teams also place Stuttgart at a disadvantage. Freiburg is more likely to win than to lose, but Stuttgart’s home form is what both clubs will have at the back of their minds as they prepare to clash on 18 January 2025 at 5:30 PM, UK time. If the thin Stuttgart squad does not cause problems for Hoeneß, this match is theirs.
VfB Stuttgart 2 – 1 SC Freiburg.
