Christian Gunter was lost for words after his Freiburg side were thumped 6-0 by Wolfsburg on their return to Bundesliga action on Saturday.
Freiburg entered the two-month break second only to Bayern Munich in the table after winning four of their final five league games of 2022.
But any thoughts of possibly rivalling 10-in-a-row champions Bayern were put into perspective by Wolfsburg at the Volkswagen Arena.
Christian Streich s side were behind after just 59 seconds through a Patrick Wimmer strike, before Jonas Wind s double put the hosts in complete control before half-time.
Yannick Gerhardt and Ridle Baku joined the scoresheet in the second half, and Luca Waldschmidt beat Mark Flekken from the penalty spot to complete the scoring.
I don t have any explanation. It wasn t expected. We have to look at what went wrong, Freiburg captain Gunter told Sky Sport.
It s extremely painful to start like this in 2023. Everything came together for them; it was a very bad day for us.
Freiburg s heavy loss sees them drop to fourth below Eintracht Frankfurt and Union Berlin, with all three sides five points behind leaders Bayern.
Reflecting on a chastening day for his side, Freiburg head coach Christian Streich said: We lost 6-0 and didn t have a chance.
After the first minute, we got to know how good Wolfsburg are. In the end, we lost 6-0. What can I say? Maybe it s best I don t say anything.
Wolfsburg s win was their fifth in a row in Bundesliga – their best run since 2014 when winning six in a row – and moves them within four points of the Champions League spots.
We got off to a very good start, Wolfsburg coach Niko Kovac said. From our second shot, we scored our second goal, then it was a sure-fire success from there.
Basically, you can t go wrong from there. I m happy with the way this team is developing.
