Freiburg has never been as successful as in its first season without cult figure Christian Streich – the club is on its way to the Champions League

In Freiburg, the journey to football was once shorter. Those who wanted to escape the traffic jams in the city center and arrived by train could walk through the city center, stroll along the Dreisam River, and finally reach the stadium named after the river. A legendary venue, a place where SC Freiburg's reputation was established. Small, cramped, with steep stands. Only 24,000 spectators could fit inside.

An idyll unique in German top-flight football. Provincial, almost village-like, but so important in football terms that the entire country looked to the outermost corner of southwest Germany.

Anyone wanting to watch football in Freiburg no longer has to go through the city center. They can reach the new arena, known as the Europa-Park Stadium, from the motorway. The stadium seats almost 35,000 spectators and is always sold out, which begs the question for Freiburg's CFO, Oliver Leki: Why on earth did the club build such a small stadium a few years ago?

Leki doesn't pause for long and counters with an anecdote: "Back then, I had to listen over and over again: 'How can you build such a large stadium for such a small location?' The same people who can't get tickets today due to high ticket demand are now saying: 'How could you build such a small stadium?'"

The small location of Freiburg and its appeal: This is the central theme of the Freiburg board member, who has been with the club for twelve years. And when he refers to the time when the new arena was planned and built, and the one in which SC Freiburg plays football today, Leki is talking about the most successful years in the club's history.

A pace that hardly anyone would have thought possible back then, especially when looking at this season: With two rounds remaining, Freiburg are in the thick of the fight for a Champions League spot. Coach Julian Schuster ("Better a 5-4 win than a 1-0 win") is – astonishingly enough – succeeding with a negative goal difference. Sunday evening resulted in a 2-2 draw against Leverkusen.

This season seems like a miracle to some fans. Especially since it's not just any season for Freiburg, but the first after the era of coach Christian Streich. The man who spent almost three decades in various positions at the club, who rose from youth coach to head coach and developed a footballing signature in Freiburg that resonated far and wide across the footballing republic. Streich – he was a maestro with the attitude of a football intellectual .

He was never at a loss for an answer, no matter what he was asked about. A gift to the club. Not someone who could be molded or controlled in any way, but a solitary figure with all his bright and dark sides. It wasn't Freiburg who declared Christian Streich a "cult coach." One can imagine that elsewhere the temptation would have been great to make Streich a very special brand ambassador.

Being useful to the club: This idea would never have occurred to anyone with Streich. He was too stubborn, too immersed in his own unique idea of ​​football, too imbued with a sense of mission, even when there was nothing to say. When Freiburg were relegated in 2015, the club was out of the question of moving to the second division with the coach. His consistency was rewarded, and Freiburg promptly regained promotion under Streich. His loyalty to the club was unwavering. Until last season, when he did something unimaginable for Freiburg fans: Streich resigned from his position.

It's not just material things that make a club great. When it comes to Freiburg, it's its dazzling history, which, incidentally, isn't all that long. The Freiburg myth, which persists to this day, dates back to the 1990s, when a coach named Volker Finke set out to play a brand of football that was different from that of its competitors. Modest in means, effective in results – that was Finke's maxim, which he summed up in the succinct formula: "Football based on concepts, not heroes." With Finke as coach, Freiburg became both a biotope and a laboratory . In the southwest, what has been described, not too pretentiously, as football culture, emerged.

And Freiburg's systematic footballers gave their rivals a run for their money, while the "Breisgau Brazilians" thrilled the league. When then-goalkeeper Richard Golz was once asked what the intellectual flair of the university city had to do with it, he replied wittily: "We're so busy philosophizing about Schopenhauer that we don't even have time to train anymore."

Freiburg's most prominent fan during these years was Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass. When asked by a reporter during a match against Borussia Dortmund how he liked the player But, he said, alluding to his own work: "Yes, he was certainly quite good, but my 'Butt' is better."

At first glance, it's folklore. At second glance, however, it's something like intangible capital. And there's a special twist to such episodes: While Finke didn't want heroic football, he had nothing against original characters. And one thing has remained true to this day: Freiburg is and never was a club of stars. Rather, it was about football ideas championed by charismatic coaches.

The man who mistrusted the heroes spent sixteen years in Freiburg. And Finke thus paved the way for much of what would come after him. Anyone who speaks to board member Leki today about the foundations of Freiburg's success will receive a simple answer: "Personnel continuity – in all positions." Coach Streich, he says, can be cited as a possible example, as can other figures at the club who know the club inside and out and have been there for a long time. Among them is the new coach, Julian Schuster. He knows the club very well from his time as a professional; before being appointed Streich's successor, he was the liaison coach between the U-23 and Bundesliga teams.

Appointing such a man as head coach also represents, in a sense, the "organic and healthy growth" that Leki calls for. The people they can rely on are already at the club. This consistency in the key position had a completely different effect for Freiburg: They were able to save a significant portion of their equity because no severance payments had to be paid.

Peculiarities and character – qualities that at first glance seem like accessories. Preserving these qualities on a rapid growth path is a delicate task, something Leki is aware of. On the other hand, the Freiburg managing director understood early on how to capitalize on this for a club that, at first glance, doesn't seem all that big: From a purely geographical perspective, Freiburg has a very special location – it's close to the border triangle of France, Germany, and Switzerland.

An appeal that reaches as far as Basel, but also as far as Alsace. Remote, indeed, when it comes to the immediate proximity to major cities. But that doesn't have to be a disadvantage, says Leki: "When I came to Freiburg, quite a few people said that, as a Bundesliga club, we had a clear competitive disadvantage due to our geographical location. To this day, I see it completely differently: For me, it's more of a strength than a weakness. I actually think it gives us an advantage, because, being so far southwest, we don't have the same competitive situation as, for example, in the west."

In the west, competition is extremely tight, with Schalke and Dortmund, Bochum, Cologne, and Leverkusen playing there. The situation is different for SC Freiburg: The club has no competitors in its region when it comes to potential sponsors. Leki speaks of several interesting companies, even if none of them are based in the region. And the SC is particularly popular in its southern neighbor. Seven percent of the approximately 70,000 members come from Switzerland, Leki says, without the Freiburg club having promoted their membership with campaigns.

The number of members has grown over the years, and this has now led the club to a considerable size. When asked about the dimensions the club has now reached, Leki quotes Christian Streich, who once said that SC Freiburg is a "small, big football club." This can also be quantified financially: Freiburg now has an annual turnover of €200 million, and most recently, it generated a profit of €40 million.

And of course, Freiburg has things you'd find in any Bundesliga stadium: business boxes, a large VIP area, although demand far exceeds supply in Freiburg. This would have been completely impossible at the old location, in the heart of the city.

But this also shows that the circumstances Freiburg find themselves in today would have been incomprehensible to most people a decade ago. And the sporting prospects have also long since changed, which increases the opportunities on the transfer market: "You can earn quite good money with us these days," says Leki.

In the meantime, however, the Freiburgers are eagerly awaiting a premiere: the Champions League in the Europa-Park Stadium.