It was an end-to-end battle on Sunday evening between VfB and SC Freiburg. The lead swung back and forth, with three goals being scored within eight second-half minutes. In the end, the competitors from Baden-Württemberg shared the spoils in a 3-3 draw. Here a brief look at the impressive statistics from the 35th Baden-Württemberg derby in the Bundesliga:
2 – The number two could be connected with Emiliano Insua in more than one way on the night. The full-back was, just like Mario Gomez, directly involved in the scoring of two goals. The defender drove home a powerful shot from distance just before half-time to make it 1-1 (44’). After the re-start, Insua then turned provider with an inch-perfect cross for Mario Gomez to intermittently make it 3-2.
His goal to make it 1-1 was not only his first ever goal in the Bundesliga wearing the shirt with the infamous hoop, but following José Basualdo, Insua became the second Argentine national to score for VfB in Germany’s top-flight. The whole thing is naturally rounded off by the fact that Emiliano Insua also wears the number 2 jersey.
The number two also played a role for Mario Gomez in the clash with SC Freiburg. During the second-half, the 33-year-old twice put his side in the driving seat, in the 48th and 56th minutes. And it wasn’t the striker’s first brace against the Breisgauer. In March of this year, Mario Gomez netted a brace to earn VfB a 2-1 victory in Freiburg. It was his second brace in succession against the Sport-Club – his third in total. In November 2016, the front-man also scored twice, as his former club VfL Wolfsburg won 3-0 in Freiburg.
300 – Mario Gomez made his 300th Bundesliga appearance on Sunday evening – scoring goals number 164 and 165 in Germany’s top-flight (140 games and 73 goals for VfB). From the currently active Bundesliga pros, only Claudio Pizarro (SV Werder Bremen, 448 appearances), his team mate Gonzalo Castro (361), Christian Gentner (351), Naldo (354) and the FC Bayern duo of Manuel Neuer (349) and Rafinha (317) have played more games amongst Germany’s elite. Gomez now needs just one more game to surpass former VfB captain Zvonimir Soldo and two to overtake VfB co-trainer Steven Cherundolo.
165 – The number of Bundesliga goals on the account of Mario Gomez. In the Bundesliga top-scorer rankings, the VfB man thus remains in twelfth place – although reducing the deficit to former Köln attacker Hannes Löhr to just one goal. In the VfB internal rankings, Gomez is hot on the heels of Jürgen Klinsmann (79 Bundesliga goals for VfB) and Cacau (80 goals). From those still active in the Bundesliga, only Claudio Pizarro (192) and Robert Lewandowski (182) have more Bundesliga goals to their credit than Mario Gomez.