St Gallen football club were unable to join Servette and Grasshoppers in the UEFA Cup's third round, losing 4-1 in Zurich to German side SC Freiburg.

Marcel Koller's team had appeared to have a strong chance of progressing past the second round for the first time in the club's history after winning last month's away leg in Freiburg 1-0.

Those chances seemed stronger yet after just eight minutes of Thursday's return match, when St Gallen defender Marc Zellweger headed in from a corner to put the Swiss side 2-0 up overall.

But it was at that point that the German side appeared to wake up. Just three minutes later, Levan Zkitischwili grabbed Freiburg's first goal before Adel Sellimi profited from some terrible St Gallen marking to level the overall score shortly before the break.

Further goals in the second half from Vladimir But and Sebastian Kehl completed a miserable scoreline for the former Swiss champions.

German jinx

Thursday's result also continued a miserable history of performances by Swiss teams against their German neighbours. The match marked the 22nd time that sides from the two countries have met in European competition, with 19 of those meetings going the way of the Germans.

Against teams from Germany's top division, Switzerland's record is even poorer with Grasshoppers Zurich's 1978 win over Eintracht Frankfurt marking the only Swiss victory in 14 attempts.

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