In the Baden-Württemberg derby against VfB Stuttgart, Freiburg will have to do without their suspended head coach Christian Streich, for whom it is “not the end of the world”.
Christian Streich does not follow the game against Stuttgart from the stands, but in a room in the stadium.
IMAGO/foto2press
After he was sent off in Dortmund with yellow-red, Streich already had the next Bundesliga game in mind. “The fact that I’m not allowed to be on the line against Stuttgart is the biggest punishment for all of us and especially for me,” he said after the 1-5 defeat at BVB. In the days that followed, however, he didn’t think about it at all, he explained two days before the Baden-Württemberg derby in the sold-out Europa Park stadium (Saturday, 3.30 p.m., LIVE! on kicker), only the DFB Cup Round of 16 counted in Sandhausen.
And getting into the quarter-finals apparently made him milder about his suspension in the Bundesliga. You shouldn’t overestimate them, he now explained, “that’s not so wild, but unusual and a shame”. His players and fellow coaches had already shown in the Europa League home game against Nantes that they could do well without him, “the boys played really well there”. Streich was absent from the 2-0 win due to a corona infection and was replaced by assistant coach Patrick Baier and liaison coach Julian Schuster.
Schuster sits on the bench as support
Since Baier was also absent from the following Bundesliga game at Hertha BSC (2-2) due to a corona infection, assistant coach Lars Voßler took over the main responsibility on the sidelines. Voßler, who represented Streich in August 2018 when he was absent due to a herniated disc, will also coach the team against VfB. As with the guest performance in Berlin, Schuster will come to the bench to support him.
The suspended head coach doesn’t want to sit in the stands, but in a room in the stadium in front of a screen “so that I can concentrate on it in peace and so that abstraction is created”. He didn’t want to hear or see anything else. He will still have the meeting before the VfB game with his fellow coaches, but he has complete confidence in his team anyway: “We sit together in the coach’s office all day and we all know each other very well.”
Keitel has overcome his muscular problems
Like the head coach, right-back Kiliann Sildillia has also seen yellow-red in Dortmund, but will certainly follow the derby from the stands. Otherwise, according to the current status, all players are on board, and Yannik Keitel has also overcome his muscular problems. However, according to Streich, there are some battered players after the cup game on Tuesday evening, especially on the offensive. Not sure if they can all be there. But he did not reveal names.
