Christian Streich sets a club record in SC Freiburg's game against Eintracht Frankfurt. The trainer has coached as many Bundesliga games as club icon Volker Finke. Streich's acceptance is unbroken.
With 340 Bundesliga games on par with Volker Finke: SCF trainer Christian Streich
In the Bundesliga game between SC Freiburg and Eintracht Frankfurt, Christian Streich couldn't tell that this encounter was a very special game for him personally. It was his 340th Bundesliga game in which he stood on the sidelines as Freiburg manager and wanted to coach his team to victory. He should also succeed against the Hessians: The SCF scored 1:1. The 57-year-old must have been happier about this point after the 6-0 debacle a few days earlier at VfL Wolfsburg than about the fact that he drew level with what is probably the club's biggest icon on Wednesday evening.
Streich is now responsible for just as many Bundesliga games for Freiburg as Volker Finke. The man who once formed the SCF from a lower-class provincial club for 16 years – with three promotions and three relegations – into a Bundesliga club and prepared it for the challenges of the German elite class with meticulous development work.
Christian Streich: learned from scratch
“It's not that relevant. I've been a coach at SC for half my life,” said Streich before the match. “When I think about it, it's been a long time.” The former professional, who once played as a striker for SC and city rivals Freiburger FC, has been a professional coach for eleven years. Quite a few experts believe that he could also catch up with and even surpass Finke's engagement – if he wanted to do it himself.
Freiburg's Nicolas Höfler cannot prevent Frankfurt's Kolo Muani from making it 1-0 for the Hessians
Streich started out with Freiburg in 1995 as a youth coach and learned his trade from scratch. The great success should come quite quickly. With the A-Juniors he won the DFB Junior Club Cup in 2006, 2009 and 2011 and in 2008 he won the German A Youth Championship with a 2-0 final win over VfL Wolfsburg. For a small club like SCF, it was a spectacular triumph in competition with the many large, significantly more financially powerful clubs in the Bundesliga. In addition, Streich has already worked as an assistant coach for the pros. His success story and that of the SCF more recently began when Streich took up his job as the main manager at SCF at the latest – whereby Streich also had to survive relegation with immediate re-emergence.
Leave the “bubble” of professional football< /h2>
Streich's record is remarkable. The son of a butcher, who, due to his down-to-earthness and normality, repeatedly stands out and often falls out of line in football, which is often so over-the-top million dollar business, has repeatedly succeeded in leading his teams from idyllic Breisgau into international competition. Thanks to Streich's continuous work, the club has managed to build a new stadium, which is a pawn for the future of professional football in Freiburg.
Christian Streich is a coach and a person who is no longer to be found in the Bundesliga in this form. Streich is also vain, as is common in the industry. But unlike many of his peers, he seems to be able to regularly break out of the “bubble” of professional football, in which the sport seems to be isolated from the rest of the world.
Fully committed on the sidelines: Freiburg coach Christian Streich
Probably always at the latest when he starts cycling home from the training ground. Streich is able to formulate his opinion publicly and with caution even on socially controversial topics. He does not hide behind empty phrases, his modesty is not a staged show. That is probably the main reason why Streich enjoys recognition nationwide – and not just among football fans – and why many people would like to see him on the sidelines of SC Freiburg for a long time to come.