Thrice before the opening half hour was completed, the match ball had to be replaced due to it being flat. Greek referee Anastasios Sidiropoulos finally lost his patience and complained vehemently to the officials. Pitch-side microphones caught Sidiropoulos angrily chastising stadium staff members.
Thankfully for Freiburg, the matter didn’t end up swaying the result. Germany’s Breisgauer ended up scoring three goals in the final 15 minutes of the first half en route to a 1-3 away victory over their French hosts. Veteran German defender Matthias Ginter, who assisted on the first goal, spoke on the balls afterwards.
“Tonight was totally weird,” Günter told RTL. “Sometimes I look in on my friends playing in the [tenth tier, fully unprofessional] Kreisliga, where the ball is sometimes a little flat. [The ref] complained that the ball in use wasn’t properly inflated. Luckily, they pumped it up at halftime.”
