With the Bundesliga kicking off this weekend, SC Freiburg will host Mainz 05 in a clash between two sides who will be looking to improve on last season's 13th and 12th place finishes respectively.

Having both been in DFB-Pokal action last weekend, this will be the second competitive fixture both teams will have played. Freiburg scraped through to the next round after a 1-0 win at 3.Liga side Magdeburg, while Mainz were dumped out by arch-rivals and 3.Liga side Kaiserslautern after slumping to a 2-0 defeat. 

Both managers have commented on the fixture, with Freiburg boss Christian Streich aware of the threat that the side from the banks of the Rhine bring. "They have fast players, a good switching game and are very compact."

He also believes not much should be read into the results in the Pokal last weekend. "We did not play well and win. Mainz has made a good game and loses - that's football."

In the opposition dugout, Sandro Schwarz has very much been talking about how his side will approach the forthcoming season. "We're competitive athletes, we want to have the reward with the contents, the intensity, the tactics and technical things, no one has to believe that we are satisfied with anything, we always want to stretch ourselves further, make the highest demands on ourselves and want to do justice to them.

"We talk about how we can play Bundesliga games and what we need to do to win in the league."

Team News

Freiburg will be without Lucas Itter and Marco Terrazino, who both picked up injuries within the last month. 

There could be Bundesliga debuts for their two new Korean signings - Woo-yeong Jeong, signed from Bayern Munich II, and Chang-hun Kwon, who joined from Augsburg. 

For Mainz, notable absentees include Jean-Philippe Mateta and Dong-won Ji, who are both out until at least October. 

Debuts could be handed to new Dutch defender Jerry St Juste and French full-back Ronael Pierre-Gabriel. 

Predicted Line Ups

SCF: Schwolow - Heintz - Gunter - Lienhart - Frantz - Hofler - Schmid - Sallai - Petersen - Waldschmidt - Borello.

M05: Muller - Brosinski - Bell - Aaron Martin - Niakhate - Latza - Fernandes - Baku - Onisiwo - Boetius - Quaison. 

 

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