A point or three on Sunday would crown a strong first half of the season for Freiburg. After the goalless draw against Union Berlin in midweek, Christian Streich’s side have picked up 26 points from the opening 16 games and sit in fifth place in the league table. “The 26 points that we have are deserved. I’m pleased that we have so many because the league has grown very tight. We’d be in a really good place if we could win the game against Leverkusen. That’s motivation for us,” explained the head coach ahead of Sunday’s match-up.

Despite a shaky start, Streich was pleased with his side’s performance against Union on Wednesday. “We’d been disappointed with the results ahead of the game because we’d matched teams that were doing well, but ultimately had lost,” said the 56-year-old on the narrow defeats to Bochum, Hoffenheim and Frankfurt. “It did us good to have come through the Union game with a draw.”

The focus in the final game before the winter break – with things getting started again on 8th January against Arminia Bielefeld – is on putting in a good performance against the league’s third-placed side. Exactly that will be essential if Freiburg want to take something out of the game ahead of Christmas. “Up front they’ve got a forward who is scoring a brace in every game. They have a lot of speed that they make use of perfectly with the quality that they have. Bayer are one of the Bundesliga’s top sides,” said Streich on the upcoming opposition. “But that doesn’t scare us. We’re enjoy playing against the top teams.”

SCF are not short of confidence after 16 games. “We trust in ourselves to match Leverkusen. There have not been many games this season in which we were dominated. Therefore, we can go into Sunday’s game with our heads high.” The two sides last met on Matchday 23 of the previous season, Freiburg emerged as 2-1 winners at the BayArena in a competitive and attack-orientated game.

Yannik Keitel and Jonathan Schmid are still out for Sunday’s game, while Manuel Gulde is a new addition to the injury after muscular problems ruled him out of the Union Berlin clash at short notice.