Bundesliga 20th matchday, Saturday, 01/02/2025 at 3:30 pm
In Freiburg, those in charge will have to gradually adjust to a season in the gray midfield of the Bundesliga. However, if SCF only had home games, a much better placement would be possible.
Only one Bundesliga club has a weaker away goal difference than Freiburg (-15). That is Bochum (-19), but they have home advantage in the direct duel and have put up massive resistance at home in recent weeks.
Although VfL coach Dieter Hecking attested his team a “performance not suitable for the Bundesliga” after the recent 3-0 defeat in Gladbach, he should have a much more committed team at his disposal in the Vonovia Ruhrstadion.
Julian Schuster has had a lot of work to do in the past few weeks in preparing for previous matches. Too often, Freiburg had disappointed defensively.
For the clash on the last matchday against FC Bayern (1-2), Schuster therefore made an unusually large number of starting eleven changes and even benched captain and long-term fixture Christian Günter.
In the Bochum Freiburg betting tip, I expect a game that will be on a knife edge for a long time and tend to see the home side as having an advantage. That’s why I’m playing odds of 2.00 for “Bochum to win (Draw No Bet)” at NEO.bet.
The betting providers’ prediction?
Before analyzing a game, I like to use the best sports betting apps to get a first overview of the general assumptions of the betting providers. They obviously see the match between Bochum and Freiburg as being just as evenly matched as I do.
SCF (27) has collected almost three times the amount of points compared to Bochum (10), but with win odds of up to 2.50, it ultimately has a similar probability of winning as VfL, to which the betting providers attribute odds of around 2.87.
KI prediction Bochum vs Freiburg: That’s what ChatGPT tips
After the typical procedure, I asked ChatGPT for three AI predictions for a Bochum Freiburg tip. The difficulty of this pairing does not seem to have escaped the artificial intelligence either. The first recommendation is a “double chance 1X”, which you can get at Winamax at odds of 1.56.
The second step is that the AI prediction shows that the days of VfL games with a maximum of two goals under Dieter Hecking are over. ChatGPT advises odds of 1.80 for “Over 2.5 goals in the game”. You can take advantage of this offer at Tipwin.
The high-risk variant delivers the big hit. While the AI forecasts often build on each other step by step, ChatGPT deviates from this in this case. Suddenly, a “Freiburg win with handicap -1” would be an advisable value bet at odds of 4.75 at Bet365.
Analysis: Bochum vs Freiburg
At the Vonovia Ruhrstadion, Bochum has conceded 17 goals. This corresponds to about 40 percent of the total of 43 goals conceded. Furthermore, VfL scored ten of 17 goals this season in their own stadium (58 percent), six of which they have managed in the last three home games.
Obviously, there is a clear gap between the home and away performances of Hecking’s team, so I’m not particularly interested in the 3-0 defeat last weekend.
The difference between home and away games is even more drastic for SC Freiburg. The Breisgauer have so far collected 70 percent of their points (19/27) in their own stadium.
In addition, there is the unsuccessful start to the second half of the season. Alongside Heidenheim, Freiburg is the only Bundesliga team to have been denied any points in the second half of the season so far.
Odds Analysis
Noah Atubolu returned to the SCF goal last weekend after recovering from an infection. In the 2-1 defeat to Bayern, the goalkeeper was involved in both goals against and confirmed his declining form from the past few weeks.
The goalkeeper has conceded two more goals than expected against him in this Bundesliga season (10) and has not kept more than 65.1 percent of the balls flying in his direction (9).
In addition, only Bochum (26) and Heidenheim (24) conceded more goals away from home than the Breisgauer (23). If you are registered with Betano, I can recommend the odds of 2.32 for “Bochum over 1.5 goals”.
Bochum vs. Freiburg: Amazing differences
After the first four match days, Julian Schuster was praised for his terrific start to the season with SC Freiburg. The Breisgauers had won three of four league games (Stuttgart, Bochum, Heidenheim) and put in a remarkable performance against Bayern (0-2).
Overall, the team from the Black Forest had only conceded four goals in the first four games of the season. Fast forward to the start of the 2025 calendar year and look at their first four appearances in the new year. Freiburg have lost three of the four league games played and conceded twelve (!) Goals – the most of any Bundesliga team since the beginning of the year.
On top of that, they have massive away problems. Freiburg have not won in their last seven Bundesliga away games (2W, 5D). This issue could come into even sharper focus if they lose in Bochum.
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26,000 motivators
Underestimating Bochum in their own stadium has been forbidden again for a few weeks. VfL have not been beaten in their last three home games, took seven out of a possible nine points and fought hard to achieve 70 percent of their total season yield (7/10).
Support from the stands has been a major factor in this. Driven by almost 26,000 roaring throats, the bottom-placed team fought back from a 3-0 hole against RB Leipzig in their last home game and left the field satisfied with a point.
Against Heidenheim (1.64 xG), St. Pauli (1.45 xG) and finally RB Leipzig (3.09 xG), Hecking’s players scored more expected goals than the opposing team in each case. They can do the same against SC Freiburg.
Especially if the Breisgauer put on their away face again. There are many more statistical bases with which the SCF weaknesses in the distance are proven.
At this point, I would like to add one more fact. At home, Freiburg conceded only 10.25 expected goals – the third-best value in the German top flight.
Outside of their own arena, however, it is already 17.72 expected goals against for Julian Schuster’s team. It doesn’t help that the Breisgauer have won all of their last six Bundesliga games against Bochum.
This season and under these particular circumstances, I consider a “Bochum win” to be a realistic scenario.
My Bochum Freiburg Tip:
Freiburg has scored only eight goals away from home – just under 30 percent of their total of 26 goals for the season. The form and the venue present the Schuster selection with a difficult task in this encounter.
Bochum is, of course, aware of its well-known away weakness and will try all the harder to win home games like this one in order to reach the relegation place, or maybe even a non-relegation place, by the end of the season.
My Bochum Freiburg tip is: Bochum Win (Draw No Bet)
