Freiburg gradually turned up the pressure, with Ginter heading a free-kick cross from Grifo into the net. Noah Atubolu denied the visitors a quick reply from Aaron Bibout (20’) – but at the other end, Freiburg struck again: Ginter headed a deflected shot from Suzuki across to Matanovic, who slotted home from close range.
But the hosts became increasingly passive, which Genk exploited ruthlessly. Freiburg failed to clear the ball properly in their own penalty area; Konstantinos Karetsas initially hit the woodwork, but played the ball rebounding off the inside post to Smets, who pushed it past Atubolu and over the line.
Freiburg, however, were only briefly thrown off their stride by this setback. Grifo was on hand to pounce on an inaccurate back-pass from Smets to keeper Tobias Lawal, and with his goal he overtook Nils Petersen in the club’s all-time scoring charts, with whom he had previously shared the status of Freiburg’s record goalscorer. Following a counter-attack, Suzuki then opened the door to the quarter-finals wide, with Eggestein adding another.