Exemplary training at SC Freiburg: From Waldsee to the world

If you didn't know better, you would bet a lot that Jürgen Klopp had agreed on the naming of his national players with the SC Freiburg office. According to reports, she has been busy organizing the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the Freiburg football school for a long time. And on Thursday the national coach promptly called four players who were trained in Freiburg's youth sector into the squad for the Nations League games: Philipp Treu, Noah Atubolu (at Eintracht Frankfurt since the summer), Yannik Engelhardt and Max Rosenfelder.

This is not without significance in times when, after a tournament that was completely ruined, the nation is wondering where the future-proof players should come from in individual positions. The Freiburg sports club has been answering exactly this question in its own way for 25 years: it trains them itself.

That works great, provided the promising talent doesn't want to become a Bundesliga striker. No matter whether Papiss Demba Cissé or Nils Petersen and Igor Matanović – all Freiburg strikers of the past 25 years were bought. They in Freiburg cannot explain why this is the case. At least not officially.

The building of the Freiburg junior wing, the “Mösle”, is located in the idyllic Waldsee district. On the way there, from the end of February onwards, you are well advised to pay attention to your feet so as not to disturb the amphibian migration. The entire Freiburg youth work still breathes the spirit of its founder, long-time trainer Volker Finke (1991–2007). It was important to the trained educator that, in addition to modern football training, personal development was not neglected.

From the beginning, we cooperated with schools and offered on-site tutoring and homework support. In addition to the trainers, a teacher also worked at the “Mösle” early on. She helped with learning German, comforted those who were homesick and ensured that the couple who rented the stadium restaurant sometimes let their guard down and served schnitzel with fries after a home win. Today there is a separate educational department headed by Markus Kiefer.

The impetus for the groundbreaking in 2000 was Finke's belief that the SC from south Baden, which has little industry, would only have a chance if it invested the money that others were spending on transfer fees in the training of future Bundesliga staff. A look at the statistics shows how well the calculation worked out. 73 players who played their first professional games at SC emerged from the football school. Across Europe, self-trained players only get more playing minutes at Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad San Sebastián.

The sales by soccer students Kevin Schade, Nico Schlotterbeck, Johan Manzambi and Noah Atubolu alone brought in well over 100 million euros and made a major contribution to ensuring that the fixed-term deposit is full to the brim with around 200 million euros and that they regularly play internationally. Like on May 20th of this year, when the SC played the biggest game in its history, the final of the Europa League, in Istanbul. We lost 3-0 to Aston Villa.

But at the sports club they find that the night on the Bosphorus has proven that they have done a lot of things right in recent years. Almost exactly in the 86th minute. At this point, Christian Günter came on as a substitute in the Typras Stadium. And thus the eighth player who was trained in the club's own football school. Alongside Matthias Ginter, Noah Atubolu, Johan Manzambi, Nicolas Höfler, Treu, Jordy Makengo and Max Rosenfelder.

Back in 2001, the Republic was amazed when the SC opened its football school and thus established the phrase that investments were being made in “stones instead of legs”. Der Spiegel cleared several pages for a report. And Uli Hoeneß announced: “What they are doing is groundbreaking.” It took a few years for the competition to catch up. But then, with all their might and a lot of money, youth performance centers were built nationwide. Today they are one of the DFL's licensing requirements.

Many clubs have now been providing high-quality training. And let expensive new purchases play. Conversely, Freiburg is now also spending impressive double-digit million sums on new recruits. In the 25 years they have not shaken the top priority of the club's policy - the permeability between the youth and professional areas - or the maxim that every euro that flows into the youth is a well-invested one.

The fact remains: If a young and an older player are almost equally good, the younger one plays for SC. The sports club has always been very happy with the fact that with many competitors it is the other way around.