Vincenzo Grifo's conversion from the penalty spot in Saturday's goal-laden Bundesliga victory over Wolfsburg enabled the 32-year-old to make history. Grifo's 70th Bundesliga goal for Freiburg now renders him the club's all-time leading league goal scorer. Club legend Nils Petersen (2015-2023) scored a total of 69 league goals for the Schwarzwaldverein.
Petersen still holds the edge in goals scored for Freiburg across all competitions, 105 to Grifo's 103. It nevertheless shouldn't be too long before that record too falls. Grifo – wearing Petersen's No. 18 tricot whilst conducting interviews in the mixed zone yesterday – noted that the two were remaining in close contact during this time.
" We [Nils and I] have been in contact over the last few days," Grifo told reporters. " And I got some incredibly nice words from Nils. He motivated me. Just as one might expect, Nils is simply a very likable guy.
" I've been after this record, but I never thought it would happen before Christmas, " Grifo continued. " It makes me incredibly proud to be the record goal-scorer for this club I love. It certainly makes Christmas more fun. "
Grifo has found himself in the middle of other important milestones met by his teammates. The German-Italian from Pforzheim was pleased to congratulate his goalkeeping colleague Noah Atubolu (in local colloquial terms) when he broke the record for number of consecutively-saved penalties.
Grifo was also eager to share a 'wine toast' with his friend and squad captain Christian Günter as the skipper closed in on Freiburg's all-time appearance record. As it turned out, Günter ended up sharing a toast with all the club ultras by buying 5,440 liters of free drinks for them .
