Freiburg beat Jablonec 3-2 for winning Conference League start

Freiburg had a winning start into their maiden Conference League season on Thursday when the Bundesliga leaders beat Czech side Jablonec 3-2. 

Freiburg started strongly into the 100th match of their coach Julian Schuster, with Cyriaque Irié and Lukas Kübler hitting the crossbar before Vincenzo Grifo opened the scoring in the 15th when he curled a free-kick into the top left corner.

Kübler should have made it 2-0 but headed wide in the 27th, which backfired two minutes later when Jablonec were level completely out of the blue. A volley from Antonin Rusek deflected off defender Matthias Ginter's heel and out of reach for goalkeeper Mio Backhaus for an own goal.  

Freiburg restored the lead 10 minutes after the restart when Grifo's corner-kick went in off Jablonec defender Dusan Pavlovic at the far post for the second own goal of the night, with the ball having crossed the line before Jiri Slama's clearance.

Maximilian Eggestein volleyed the third in the 65th after Jablonec failed to clear which decided matters in favour of last season's Europa League finalists as Jablonec's second from Garang Kuol in stoppage time came too late.

"We didn't allow much but gave them the chance to score twice," the not fully satisfied Schuster told broadcasters RTL. 

Ginter added in reference to Freiburg's strong and unbeaten start into the season: "We are winning close games so we can't complain at the moment. We want to go far and are very ambitious."