SC Freiburg Tryouts & Club Guide: History, Stadium, Players, and More!

Sport-Club Freiburg e.V., commonly known as SC Freiburg, is a German football club, based in the city of Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg. The club competes in the Bundesliga, the top flight of German football.

SC Freiburg Youth Development System

SC Freiburg Academy

The SC Freiburg is known beyond the national borders for its excellent youth work. As early as the end of the 1990s, at a time when the term youth performance center (NLZs) did not even exist in German professional football, SC Freiburg was already setting up as a training club and thus assuming a pioneering role in Germany. Highly qualified and sustainable talent development, coupled with a high degree of permeability from the youth to the professional area, have been important strategic cornerstones of the club since then.

THE IDEA OF ​​THE TRAINING ASSOCIATION

At the end of the 1990s, SC Freiburg was one of the first German professional clubs to deliberately set up as a training association. Even back then, the SC managers saw a chance to compensate for structural competitive disadvantages in the region and thus establish SC Freiburg in the Bundesliga in the long term in good youth work. To this day, the Freiburg Football School (FFS) enjoys an excellent reputation as a training facility in Germany and beyond – and has also been certified as such. The positive reputation is due on the one hand to the good sporting work of the club. However, the concept of dual training and the social commitment of the sports club also play a decisive role in anchoring the club further in the region. 

PERMEABILITY

Right from the start, an important component of SC Freiburg’s youth work was the very close interlinking of its football school with the professional department. Due to the high degree of permeability, talents in Freiburg usually had and still have greater chances of making the leap into the professional field than at many other locations – especially since the Freiburg head coaches traditionally rely more on their own talents. 

The permeability from the junior to the professional area is lived, secured and further developed within the club through numerous measures in everyday working life: At SC Freiburg, the professional coaching staff meets regularly with the management team of the football school and the responsible junior coaches from the performance area (U17 to U23) : The focus is on the development of the individual junior teams and players as well as the critical review of one’s own concepts and the joint development of new approaches and perspectives.

Examples of the high level of permeability from the soccer school built in 2001 are home-grown children trained in Freiburg such as Christian Günter, Matthias Ginter and Sebastian Kehl. In the course of their careers they matured into top Bundesliga players and even played for the German national team. Former football students in the current SC professional squad (as of March 2021) are: Christian Günter, Nicolas Höfler, Jonathan Schmid, Niclas Thiede, Lino Tempelmann, Yannik Keitel and Keven Schlotterbeck (see below).

The close connection between youngsters and professionals can also be seen in the careers of three current SC coaches: Christian Streich already worked at the sports club as the sporting director of the young talent center and as A youth coach (U19), before becoming co-coach and later head coach who became SC professionals. Streich’s long-time assistant coaches Lars Voßler (formerly U19 coach) and Patrick Baier (formerly U17 coach), who also moved up from football school to the professional department, went through a similar career. In the meantime, SC Freiburg has even installed a so-called “liaison coach” with former SC professional Julian Schuster, who has been acting at the interface between U19, U23 and the professional sector since the 2018/19 season.

THE ROLE OF THE “SECOND” (U23)

The second team (U23) also plays an important role in the functioning and close interaction between the football school and professionals. Almost exclusively made up of young players from their own offspring, it enables an often important intermediate step in the training process in the transition area between juniors and active players. 

Talents from the second team or the U19 join the professional training group for individual days or for longer phases or are taken to the professional training camp. As a result, young players are carefully introduced to the professional squad and can develop step by step in cooperation with the Bundesliga professionals. 

This principle also applies in the other direction: Young players who are already training with the professionals but have not yet made the leap into the team there are given the opportunity to gain experience in the game through regular assignments in the “second” class To recommend the professional team. 

The bottom line is that this close interlinking of the junior and professional sectors helps to optimally promote talent and to keep the permeability from bottom to top as high as possible. 

DRIVING SERVICE

Around 130 players from the Freiburg football school come from the near and far surroundings of Freiburg and commute to training every day. If the journey to and from home by public transport is too difficult, the six minibuses from the soccer school’s driving service are used. They guarantee a daily pick-up and delivery service for training or back home, which not only makes it easier to commute between training and home. In addition, it creates the opportunity for the young kickers to train and play at SC Freiburg and still be able to develop as long as possible in their familiar social surroundings. 

SC Freiburg Academy Recruitment & Trials

As a rule, before they move to SC Freiburg, youth players have already been noticed during inspection measures. Afterwards, the SC youth coaches, SC scouting or the network of the sports club observed in detail. And often they have also been invited several times to test training at the soccer school.  

But because exceptions confirm the rule, anyone who thinks they know a talent that has not been seen before can email the football school an application for a test training session. Important: This application is not the same as a registration. Because with us the principle applies: Children and young people cannot be registered in the Freiburg football school.

To fill out the trial application, please click here.

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SC Freiburg History

The Schwarzwald-Stadion has served as the home field for the club since it opened in 1954. In 2021, the club is going to relocate to the recently constructed SC-Stadion. The team was managed by Volker Finke, who holds the record for the longest tenure of any manager in the history of professional football in Germany.

Finke was in charge of the club from 1991 until 2007. Joachim Low is the current manager of the Germany national team. During his three stints with the club, he scored 81 goals in 252 games, making him the club’s second-highest all-time leading goal scorer. Nils Petersen is the club’s all-time top goal scorer.

Stadium

Schwarzwald-Stadion is a football stadium in Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. At the moment, it serves as the headquarters of Bundesliga team SC Freiburg. The stadium was constructed in 1953 and has a capacity of 24,000 spectators. It was known as the Dreisamstadion for a good number of years due to its location close to the Dreisam river.

Construction has begun on the brand new SC-Stadion, which will be situated in the western part of the city and will have a capacity of 34,700 spectators. It is anticipated that it will be completed in 2021.