Freiburg overcomes Hertha on penalties after tense battle at Olympiastadion

Hertha got the better of the opening exchanges and thought they had taken an early lead when Fabian Reese jumped on a rebound to finish from close range in the seventh minute.

However, the goal was ruled out after the initial header from Julian Eitschberger that set up the chance had been made from an offside position.

Freiburg grew into the game well as the first half went on and created several chances but were denied by Tjark Ernst, who had an excellent night in between the sticks for Hertha.

The second half produced fewer chances than the first as the nerves began to build and both sides switched focus to defence rather than attack.

The best chance of the second period was a Paul Seguin free-kick delivered onto the head of Marton Dardai but the chance flew just wide of the post.

With neither side able to break the deadlock during the 90 minutes, the match headed into extra time.

With the teams perhaps wanting to avoid the lottery of a penalty shootout, the match opened up significantly and the first goal came in the 96th minute following a huge error by Linus Gechter.

The centre-back played a back-pass without looking which allowed the pacey Yuito Suzuki to intercept the ball and beat Ernst with a low, driven shot.

Suzuki quickly turned from hero into villain, though, as just eight minutes later, he was dispossessed far to easily in midfield to allow Hertha to launch a counter-attack.

The ball found its way to Fabian Reese, who launched a vicious long-range strike into the top corner beyond a diving Florian Muller to level the scores.

With the scores locked at 1-1 at the end of extra time, the match would be decided by a penalty shootout.

All six of the first penalties were converted before Michael Cuisance was denied by a fine save from Muller. However, Ernst came to the rescue by saving the very next penalty from Johan Manzambi.

Lucas Holer and Paul Seguin traded penalties to make it 4-4 with Suzuki putting Freiburg ahead with an adacious strike between Ernst's legs.

Pascal Klemens then saw his effort saved by Muller to end Hertha's hopes and send Freiburg through to the semi-final of the DFB-Cup.