Jochen Saier has already spent more than half his professional life at SC Freiburg. First as a youth coordinator, then as a sports director and currently as a sports director. An event that still has an impact today occurred a year before he began his involvement with the Breisgauers, which started in 2002: the opening of the club's own football school. “Looking back,” says Saier, “that was of course an incredibly important decision. Because the football school was and is the foundation on which the club has been able to stand very, very well in recent years.”
Football visionary Volker Finke campaigned for the construction at the time. Instead of investing in his team, the coach advised club officials to set up a youth training center, which cost the club 20 million German marks - almost half of the annual budget at the time. “Stones instead of legs” was his motto, and it still has an impact today.
What can also be seen in the current squad of the German national team: Yannik Engelhardt, Max Rosenfelder, Derry Scherhant and Philipp Treu, four current national players are under contract in Breisgau, and four more were trained there. Only record champions FC Bayern (nine) provide more professionals for the selection of national coach Jürgen Klopp. Freiburg, a club with seemingly modest financial resources for a long time, has gradually become a role model for German football.
Academy as a model for success
In addition to the club's own record number of national players being seconded, of which right-back Treu was particularly impressive in Klopp's team, the Freiburg team are also doing brilliantly in terms of sport. They have played seven games so far, winning six of them. Only in the 2-2 draw before the international break in Frankfurt did coach Julian Schuster's men not leave the pitch as winners. The reward: third place in the Bundesliga, as well as reaching the second round of the DFB Cup and reaching the group phase in the Conference League.
The fact that they have remained true to their principles along the way makes their success all the more astonishing. "In the 2026 Europa League final, probably the biggest game in the club's history, five players from the Freiburg football school were in the starting line-up. Three were substituted on and two more were in the squad," explains Saier in an interview with WELT AM SONNTAG. "It is firmly anchored in our culture that the first thing we do is look inside our own house before we look outside. We do this even in times when we have reached a certain altitude - like right now. That is the art: that you still stay with yourself and on your path, even if the general conditions have changed."
You can now also see the changed conditions in your account balance. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reports on a fixed-term deposit account that is said to contain 200 million euros. Saier doesn't want to confirm this number, but he does suggest that his club is now one of the richest in the Bundesliga. “I’ll leave the number uncommented,” says the sports director. "A maxim that the club has always been able to stay true to was, even 25 years ago, that in the good times we have to put something aside for the difficult times. The club has achieved positive financial results in all of its years in the Bundesliga in order to be prepared for longer phases in the second Bundesliga."
Healthy structures, but also the transfer policy, were crucial for this: making a lucrative sale at the right moment in order to have the financial potential to sign two or three interesting, developable players. “This way we have become closer and better in terms of the squad,” explains Saier.
With its identity-creating approach and the special talent promotion that Freiburg introduced when its competitors were not even thinking about building youth training centers, the SC is now seen as a role model for many clubs in Germany. Also because of the high permeability of highly gifted players to the men's team: in the 25 years of the football school's existence, a total of 73 players have advanced from the academy to the professional squad. That is an enormous number.
One of them is now an absolute top performer in the national team: Nico Schlotterbeck. The central defender (who had just been injured again) moved to Borussia Dortmund in 2022 for a fee of 20 million euros - the second most expensive sale in the club's history up to that point. A year later, Kevin Schade followed to Brentford FC for 25 million euros. Like Schlotterbeck, Noah Atubolu and Mika Baur, he is also a current national player with Freiburg history.
And this summer, Johan Manzambi finally provided a real windfall. The Swiss came to SC as a 17-year-old on a free transfer from Servette Geneva's youth team, was promoted there, carefully promoted through the A-youth team and the second team and then sold to Aston Villa for 65 million euros in July after a strong World Cup.
Even though he did not receive his entire training in Breisgau, the record sale is symbolic of the Freiburg Way. On the other hand, despite immense income, the club operated more than solidly on the transfer market and never took part in the “punk” that took place every six months. Goalkeeper Mio Backhaus, who came to SC from Werder Bremen before the season, is the record purchase in the Freiburg club's history with twelve million euros. Behind them are right winger Ritsu Doan, who came to Breisgau from Eindhoven for 10.4 million euros in 2022, and Yuito Suzuki. The Japanese game designer moved from Bröndby to SC a year ago for ten million euros.
Where some clubs have succumbed to the temptation to have a suddenly improved team, Freiburg has always remained true to its philosophy and has never taken part in the sometimes absurd-seeming betting [note: in the original text: betting].
The club also offers something unique in other respects: in an industry characterized by “hire and fire” with little patience for the protagonists, the SC represents a nice alternative. Since Finke, who was ahead of his time with his vision and worked as a coach from 1991 to 2007, only four (sic!) different coaches have been active at the SC in the past 19 years: Robin Dutt (from 2007 to 2011), Marcus Sorg (July 2011 to December 2011), Christian Streich (December 2011 to 2024) and since then Schuster.
“Many clubs took a wrong turn”
With the basic trust in the club's most important employees, the SC differs significantly from almost all other opponents. The average length of time a coach spent in the Bundesliga over the past ten years was just 13 months.
Saier's work as a Freiburg official is also characterized by great consistency and mutual loyalty. "We show that we can pursue our goals with a little more calm and not this kind of showmanship. This applies to successful times like right now, but also to phases in which things are a little more bumpy. We have achieved this with clear guidelines," says the 48-year-old.
The squad nomination made by Klopp is a clear confirmation of the work done at SC. "We want to continue to stick with ourselves. We want maximum success, but stick with our path. That's the great art: sticking together when the demands from outside increase, when the view of us changes. I think it's a key factor for us that we don't let ourselves be driven too much by the outside."
A calmness that is unparalleled in football Germany and has become a hallmark of Freiburg's success. “We have stayed true to this path, and yet we have invested ambitiously in our squad in recent years,” said Saier. “The basis for success is of course closely linked to the quality of the squad, but above all also to the way we work and the stability in the club.” His club has developed a clear brand core and is pursuing a path that everyone supports out of conviction. “This is also why the SC has been able to grow as it has in previous years,” says Saier. "We want to push boundaries, but stay on our path. That's a high demand. Many clubs have taken the wrong turn at this fork in the road in the past."
