There are afternoons when a scoreline flatters the winners and afternoons when it barely does them justice. This was firmly the latter. SC Freiburg tore Borussia Mönchengladbach apart at the Europa-Park Stadion, a 5-0 rout that carried the certainty of a side who suddenly believe there are no limits to their season. Three games played, three games won, ten goals scored and only one conceded. Freiburg are top of the Bundesliga, and they look every inch the part.

For Gladbach, the numbers read like an indictment. Rock bottom on zero points, twelve goals shipped in three matches, a season unravelling before autumn has properly arrived. They came to Freiburg needing a foothold and found only quicksand. By the time the fifth goal went in, the visitors were a beaten team long before the final whistle confirmed it.

The manner of it mattered as much as the margin. Freiburg did not merely win; they hunted, they carved, they punished. Every mistake was seized upon, every opening converted into something dangerous. This was a performance of authority and appetite, and it announced the hosts as genuine contenders at the top of the German game.

Early statement

The tone was set inside half an hour, and it was set emphatically. On 23 minutes Derry Scherhant swung in a cross following a corner, and Yannik Engelhardt rose at the right side of the six-yard box to steer a header into the top right corner. It was a goal born of set-piece precision, the kind Freiburg have built their reputation upon, and it gave the home crowd its first roar of a long afternoon.

Six minutes later the lead was doubled, and this time it was pure quality from range. Matthias Ginter fed the ball forward and Igor Matanovic took aim from outside the box, a right-footed strike arrowed into the centre of the goal. Two goals, both crafted and both dispatched with conviction. Gladbach, already fragile, had no answer to the speed of it.

At 2-0 inside half an hour, the game already had the feel of a mismatch. Freiburg pressed with hunger and moved the ball with intent, while the visitors chased shadows and grew ragged. The Europa-Park Stadion sensed a rout was coming, and the players in red seemed to sense it too.

Reduced to ten

Whatever slim hopes Gladbach carried into the interval were extinguished seven minutes after the restart. Tim Kleindienst, already booked, lunged into a bad foul and received a second yellow card, leaving his side to play the remaining forty minutes a man light and two goals down. It was the surrender of a team already stretched to breaking point.

Down to ten, Gladbach retreated and hoped to contain the damage. For a spell they held firm, but containment against a Freiburg side in this mood was always going to be borrowed time. The extra man simply widened the gulf that had been apparent from the opening whistle, and the hosts began to smell blood.

When a team is bottom of the table, low on confidence and short on numbers, the final quarter becomes a place of dread. So it proved. The dam that had held through the third quarter of the match was about to burst, and it would burst spectacularly.

The floodgates open

The killing blows arrived in a devastating flurry. On 77 minutes Jordy Makengo supplied the cross and Matanovic headed home from very close range for his second of the afternoon, a poacher's finish to sit alongside his earlier strike from distance. Two minutes later Ginter turned provider again, and Engelhardt lashed a left-footed shot into the bottom right corner from outside the box to claim his own brace.

Four goals had become a formality, but Freiburg were not done. With four minutes remaining Maximilian Eggestein arrived at the far post to prod home from very close range, a fifth goal that sent the home supporters into raptures and completed the humiliation. Three goals in the space of nine minutes turned a comfortable win into an emphatic statement.

Engelhardt and Matanovic finished with two apiece, Ginter with two assists, and every man in red seemed to leave a mark on the contest. This was collective ruthlessness, a team playing without fear or hesitation. The scoreboard read 5-0, and nobody inside the ground could argue it was anything but deserved.

Contrasting horizons

For Freiburg, the view from the summit is a heady one. A perfect start, a goal difference already blossoming, and a swagger that suggests this is no fluke. Ten scored, one conceded, and a squad clearly enjoying one another's company. Whether they can sustain the pace of a full Bundesliga campaign remains to be seen, but for now they sit above everyone, and they have earned the right to look down.

Gladbach, meanwhile, must confront an alarming reality. Three defeats from three, zero points, and a defence leaking goals at a rate that threatens to define their season. Bottom of the table and beaten in every phase, they leave Freiburg with more questions than answers and precious little to build upon. The margin for recovery is narrowing with every passing week.

Football moves quickly, and both clubs will soon have the chance to reshape the narrative. Freiburg will travel with belief, carrying the momentum of a side who cannot stop scoring. Gladbach must find something, anything, to arrest a slide that has begun in the worst possible fashion. On this evidence, the gap between the two is not measured in points alone, but in conviction.