Yuito Suzuki's hat-trick fires Freiburg to a 4-1 win over Werder Bremen

Freiburg started the new season the way they will want to keep going, beating Werder Bremen 4-1 at the Europa-Park Stadion. Yuito Suzuki took the headlines with a hat-trick.

The first half was tight until Suzuki broke it open on 29 minutes, converting a Jan-Niklas Beste delivery. Igor Matanović doubled the lead right on half-time from a Matthias Ginter assist, and Suzuki then struck twice in seven minutes after the break to make it 4-0.

Dariusz Stalmach pulled one back for Bremen on 76 minutes, set up by Marco Grüll, but by then the game was long gone.

Match facts

• 29' — Yuito Suzuki (Freiburg), assisted by Jan-Niklas Beste
• 45' — Igor Matanović (Freiburg), assisted by Matthias Ginter
• 48' — Yuito Suzuki (Freiburg), assisted by Derry Scherhant
• 55' — Yuito Suzuki (Freiburg), assisted by Igor Matanović
• 76' — Dariusz Stalmach (Werder Bremen), assisted by Marco Grüll

Freiburg did not need many chances. Seven shots, four on target, four goals — a ruthless afternoon against a Bremen side that barely got out of its own half.

A first Bundesliga hat-trick

The hat-trick was a first for Suzuki in Germany's top flight — he had never scored more than once in a single Bundesliga game before this one. The 24-year-old Japan international joined Freiburg from Danish club Brøndby in the summer of 2025, and across his entire debut season in the Bundesliga he scored four goals in total. This one afternoon brought him to three, level with three-quarters of a full campaign's output at his new club. He is a seven-time full international for Japan and had featured at the 2026 FIFA World Cup only weeks before the season kicked off.

"I just tapped in all three goals. So I just want to thank all three guys who gave me the great passes."

— Yuito Suzuki

Suzuki played down the individual milestone but was clear about where the team's focus needed to stay. "It's still the beginning of the season," he said afterwards. "So we want to keep going, and we want to be a good team right until the end." The performance earned him 80% of the vote for Bundesliga app users' Man of the Match. Freiburg made the win look routine partly because of squad management — they had rotated their side after a midweek Conference League fixture — while Bremen were missing midfielder Jens Stage through injury.

Score by half

The teams since

That opening-day rout turned out to be the base of a strong start for Freiburg. They followed it with a 5-0 demolition of a 10-man Borussia Mönchengladbach on matchday 3, then had an unbeaten start ended by Eintracht Frankfurt in a 2-2 draw on matchday 4. Three wins and a draw from four games have Julian Schuster's side 3rd in the Bundesliga table with 10 points, a goal difference of plus nine built on 12 goals scored and only three conceded — the tightest defensive record of any side outside the top two.

For Werder Bremen, this 4-1 defeat was as bad as their season has got. They bounced back immediately with a 3-1 win over RB Leipzig on matchday 2, in which Niclas Füllkrug scored on his return to the club, then drew 1-1 away at 1. FC Köln on matchday 3 before beating FC Augsburg 3-2 from two goals down on matchday 4. That loss-win-draw-win sequence leaves Daniel Thioune's side 8th on 7 points, with as many goals scored as conceded — 8 for, 8 against — a level record built on the kind of resilience that turned a two-goal deficit into a stoppage-time winner three matchdays later.