SC Freiburg is on course for the European Cup in the Bundesliga.

The Badeners defeated newly promoted VfL Bochum 3-0 (2-0) on Saturday and drew level on points, at least temporarily, with fourth-placed RB Leipzig, who is still a guest at Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday.

Lukas Kübler (5th minute) and Roland Sallai with two goals (16th, 53rd) scored for the strong hosts in front of 34,000 spectators in the Europa-Park Stadium.

At VfL midfielder Konstantinos Stafylidis saw the red card in the middle of the second half because of a foul (68th) and coach Thomas Reis, who had apparently complained too vehemently about it.

Freiburg should now travel to the DFB Cup semifinals at second division Hamburger SV on Tuesday with plenty of self-confidence.

With 36 points, Bochum are further down in the middle of the table, but are not yet sure of remaining in the league.

The Breisgauer, whose striker Nils Petersen was able to start a league game from the start for the first time since the end of February, completely dominated the game and were already 2-0 up after a good quarter of an hour.

First, after a long ball from Nicolas Höfler, full-back Kübler appeared completely free on the right side of the penalty area and hit the left corner, which is well worth seeing.

Then offensive man Sallai increased with a placed low shot from the right side, which jumped off the left inner post into the net.

The goal was preceded by a risky but probably rule-compliant sliding tackle by the Hungarian.

VfL, on the other hand, initially produced almost no goal threat.

A header from Sebastian Polter was cleared by Freiburg's defense ace Nico Schlotterbeck for a corner (18th) - not much more came from the guests.

Instead, Petersen could have made it 3-0 after 25 minutes, but headed wide from a promising position.

The industrious Sallai with a header (36') and Woo-yeong Jeong with a shot wide of the goal (45') missed further chances for the Freiburg team, who were very keen to run and play.

And were loudly supported by the ranks.

"A stadium that's boiling" was what SC coach Christian Streich wanted before the game - and he got it.

VfL coach Reis made three changes during the break.

Among others, striker Simon Zoller made his second appearance after a long injury break.

But even before Bochum could have started to catch up, the next setback followed.

Sallai headed in after a nice Jeong cross.

It was the second Bundesliga game in which the Hungarian international scored twice.

He experienced his first in December 2020 against FC Schalke 04.

Almost ten minutes after Schlotterbeck had missed the 4:0 (60th), things got hectic again.

First Stafylidis saw red for a violent foul on Sallai on the sidelines, then his angry coach Reis.

The 48-year-old watched the rest of the game from the stands.