With both teams having leaky defences, there was a hope for plenty of goals in the Black Forest city of Freiburg this week. Instead, Christian Streich's home side and Heiko Herrlich's Bayer Leverkusen were both unable to trouble the scorers in a dour goalless draw.

The teams

Hot off the back of their heavy defeat in Augsburg, Freiburg coach Christian Streich made two changes to his starting eleven. Lukas Kübler and Jérôme Gondorf were in, with Philipp Lienhart and Marco Terrazzino both on the bench.

Die Werkself would have been high on confidence following their Europa League win over Cypriot outfit AEK Larnaca in the middle of the week, and Herrlich made three changes. The exchange of Lars Bender with Aleksandar Dragović was a last-minute swap, while Karim Bellarabi and Leon Bailey were both rested for Julian Brandt and Lucas Alario.

Watching paint dry

There was little in the way of action in the opening 45 minutes, with Leverkusen content to shoot from distance. The result was that Freiburg 'keeper Alexander Schwolow had nothing to do. Dragović had a go, as did Kevin Volland and youngster Kai Havertz who shot wide from just outside the penalty area.

At the other end, Bayer 'keeper Lukáš Hrádecký had even less to do. The biggest chance - if one can call it that, fell to Florian Niederlechner, who was unable to make the most of a cross from skipper Mike Frantz (32). It was like watching paint dry.

A pensive Christian Streich looks on, as his side carve out a 0:0 draw against Bayer Leverkusen

In fact, the biggest story was the enforced withdrawal of the Freiburg seven minutes before the break. With Nils Petersen still out injured, it left the home side without a recognised striker.

Deadlock remains unbroken

The second half was not much better, with both 'keepers again having very little to do. Argentinian Alario hit a shot well wide of the target for Leverkusen (53) before firing over six minutes later, and at the other end a Gondorf cross was well intercepted by Wendell. When Freiburg finally got a shot on target, Kübler's weak effort was easily gathered by Hrádecký (62).

As the match meandered towards its conclusion, Streich's men seemed to switch up a gear. A long ball from centre-back Robin Koch found Christian Günter who put a difficult half-chance over the crossbar from close range (72.)

Right at the end of the ninety minutes, sub Luca Waldschmidt almost claimed the points for the Breisgauer. The 22-year-old's left-footed effort was well struck, but had just a little too much curl on it. Hrádecký was completely helpless, and could only watch as the ball struck the base of the upright.

Result: SC Freiburg 0 Bayer 04 Leverkusen 0