OMG
Off notes in Bundesliga idyll: for all the
Off notes in Bundesliga idyll: for all the mystical and picturesque beauty of the overall SC Freiburg artwork, the club cannot avoid acknowledging the infamous mechanisms of the business.
mystical and picturesque beauty of the overall SC Freiburg artwork, the club cannot avoid acknowledging the infamous mechanisms of the business. Whether they want to or not, innocence has to be lost sooner or later.
Can Freiburg not handle stars? In the club’s
Can Freiburg not handle stars?
fourth Bundesliga year, 1996/97, nothing is as it once was. For the first time the club had brought in genuine stars in Dieter Frey, Michael Sternkopf, Michael Frontzeck and Stephan Marasek.
It went badly wrong. The Kicker concluded that Finke had been unlucky with his signings and, worse, had not managed to unite the squad’s full potential. Instead of presenting the team as the supreme value, some players were granted special treatment — and others then wanted the same.
The philosophy broke. In autumn 1996, after a poor start and only one win from six, Finke’s opponents mobilised. After another home defeat he had to leave the stadium under police protection in a heavy Mercedes while beer cups and lighters flew outside.
Freiburg went wild.
The wildest rumour: Streich as Bayern coach. In
The wildest rumour: Streich as Bayern coach.
March 2018, as Germany searched for Bayern’s next coach, a bizarre rumour suddenly did the rounds: Christian Streich could become Bayern coach. Streich, who regularly spoke about his own youthful trips to the Olympic Stadium, answered it in his own way: every week someone else is linked with Munich, he said, and he would almost have been offended had his own name not appeared at some stage.
But, he added, there were enough people who could coach there; he was Freiburg’s coach, full stop.
The new stadium: from 2020/21 Freiburg planned to
The new stadium: from 2020/21 Freiburg planned to move into the new ground in Wolfswinkel in western Freiburg.
move into the new ground in Wolfswinkel in western Freiburg. In December 2019, however, nothing was clear. The project had become an administrative farce one would have placed in Berlin rather than Baden.
Although the club got its building permit in 2018 after years of struggle, several residents sued over noise. The administrative court in Freiburg rejected the action, but the higher court partly upheld it and ruled that because of noise restrictions no evening matches and no Sunday matches between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. could be played there. That would have forced Freiburg back into the Schwarzwaldstadion for those kick-offs.
Later it became clear that an outdated regulation had been applied, so the next legal round began. Oh my God indeed.
SCF — Financial Stability Score
Freiburg ist das Anti-BVB: Kein Glamour, keine Mega-Transfers, kein CL-Anspruch — dafür die stabilste Bilanz der gesamten Liga. EK-Quote 80,3%, PK-Quote 38,8%, praktisch schuldenfrei. Das Streich/Schuster-Modell beweist: Man kann im Profifußball finanziell gesund wirtschaften. Die Kehrseite: Die sportliche Decke ist strukturell begrenzt. Freiburg wird nie Meister — aber auch nie in finanzielle Not geraten.
OMG — Update 2020–2026
The substitution error in the 2022 DFB Cup: in the semi-final against Hamburger SV, Freiburg accidentally brought on too many players.
The substitution error in the 2022 DFB Cup:
The substitution error in the 2022 DFB Cup: in the semi-final against Hamburger SV, Freiburg accidentally brought on too many players.
in the semi-final against Hamburger SV, Freiburg accidentally brought on too many players. Union Berlin, whom Freiburg had eliminated in the quarter-final, lodged a protest. The DFB rejected the appeal — but the procedure sparked weeks of debate about the interpretation of the rules.