A remarkable comeback from the first-leg deficit! A clinical SC Freiburg make history in the Europa League

"You always get that feeling as the week goes on. You could just tell with the lads – they were fully committed," Schuster told RTL: "We’re very, very happy and very, very proud of what we’ve achieved and that we get to continue travelling with all our fantastic fans."

Matthias Ginter (19'), Igor Matanovic (25'), Vincenzo Grifo (53'), who became Freiburg’s all-time leading goalscorer with his 106th competitive goal in a Freiburg shirt, Yuito Suzuki (57') and Maximilian Eggestein (79') put on an attacking display. Matte Smets (39') had briefly brought Genk back into the game – but Freiburg refused to let their quarter-final ticket slip away. Following their fifth win in five home games, the Breisgau side can now continue their European adventure in April against Celta Vigo in the quarter-finals.

“We are confident we can make up the deficit,” Schuster had emphasised to RTL before the match. The SCF coach was once again able to count on the driving force of Eggestein, who had been sorely missed in the first leg and was back in the starting line-up after serving his red card suspension.

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.