Freiburg vs Lens Prediction & Betting Tips - Europa League

Prediction published on 22/02/2024, 04:40  by Ian John in Europa League Predictions

After a somewhat pallid first leg tie between SC Freiburg and RC Lens, we head into the second leg at Freiburg's Europa-Park Stadion with the game finely poised at 0-0. The German side put an end to a three game losing streak with their draw in Lens last week and they followed that up with an entertaining 3-3 home draw with Eintracht Frankfurt, Ritsu Doan, Vincenzo Grifo and Michael Gregoritsch scoring the goals to hand the Breisgau-Brazilians a coveted point which saw them drop from 7th to 8th in the Bundesliga. In Europe though Freiburg are solid, only losing to West Ham in the Group Stage, although doing so home and away. It is all to play for in what should be a closely contested second leg in front of their home support.

After dropping into the Europa League from the Champions League, RC Lens will probably feel that they perhaps should have had more from the first leg at the Stade Bollaert-Delelis. While they had more possession, they lacked penetration in front of goal and although they had a dozen shots in the game, not one hit the target. Young striker Elye Wahi is a coveted prospect around Europe but the Freiburg defence coped with his threat well. Whether or not playing on the counter will help the French team here is open to debate, but on the road they have gone three games unbeaten and won two of those games without conceding, which suggests that hitting Freiburg on the counter attack may be a tactic they will seek to employ on Thursday night.