Season Preview 2015/2016: SC Freiburg

Number of Matches won by 2 or more goals: 5
Number of Matches won by 1 goal: 2
Number of Matches drawn: 13
Number of Matches lost by 1 goal: 8
Number of Matches lost by 2 or more goals: 6
Number of matches in which a lead was blown, resulting in loss: 1 (1-2 to SC Paderborn on match day 31…that was painful.)
Number of matches in which a lead was blown, resulting in draw: 7(!!)
Number of matches in which a deficit was overcome to earn a draw: 1
Number of matches in which a deficit was overcome to earn victory: 2

2014-15 Season Summary

The 2014-15 season was, in a word, disappointing and as we know ended with Freiburg’s relegation from the Bundesliga. In an extremely broad sense the contributing factors were twofold: the inability to close out matches and the fact that at any given point in the season there were a slew of injuries throughout the squad.

The details are below but Freiburg had an awfully difficult time holding the lead in matches, especially in the Hinrunde, where the club went winless in their first 9 matches and finished the first half on 15 points and rock bottom of the table. While points are points no matter when you get them in a season needlessly throwing away points early on puts unnecessary pressure on the club to make up ground closer to the end of the season. This pressure was then compounded by the fact that outside of perhaps Bayern and Dortmund, who were truly ravaged by the injury bug during the 2014/2015 season(but nonetheless both clubs had vastly greater budgets and therefore squad depth), the SCF squad was hit with injuries more than most clubs in the Bundesliga and thus the squad was practically never fully fit – Freiburg were also not helped out at all by the wave of flu that hit the surrounding region in January, which caused players to miss matches or not perform on the pitch at full health.

With all that said, one of the club’s main strengths is the ability of the manager to get the most out of the players he has at his disposal, especially the young players – the vast majority of players to suit up for the club in 2014-15 were under the age of 24. Christian Streich is not timid about putting youngsters into positions of responsibility and holding them accountable for their play on the pitch. This allows players to put into practice the manager’s football philosophy and adapt to the professional game perhaps more quickly than if they were mere observers. The drawback is that they are essentially learning on the job and errors, sometimes costly, will occur more frequently. These errors did occur more frequently last season which greatly contributed to the club’s relegation.

What is Freiburg’s playing style then? When he first took over Christian Streich had his club playing a high pressing, counter-attacking style in the vein of Jürgen Klopp’s Dortmund, Thomas Tuchel’s Mainz, and most recently Roger Schmidt’s Leverkusen (although Schmidt takes this perhaps to an extreme level). And the results were incredibly positive as the players bought in which caused the club to punch above their weight. The Freiburg of 2014/15, however, were a shell of their former selves and often times looked like they were playing not to lose as opposed to playing to win. The team lacked creativity in attack, relying less on crisp, quick short passes and more on hoofing long balls out of the defence to the attackers up field, bypassing the midfielders almost entirely. Defensively the team were not terrible but suffered from periodic, and at times severe, lacks of concentration which tended to cost the team dearly and at the worst possible instances.