EAway from the big football headlines, Ritsu Doan recently revealed a well-kept secret from Freiburg during an interview published in English. The success of the SC, who is keenly involved in the fight for the top spots in the table, “didn’t surprise him”, the Japanese attacker tells “bundesliga.com”. This success was announced to him exactly like this: “Before I came here, I spoke to the coach and the sports director, and they told me that we would be among the top six teams,” reports Doan.
This is a remarkable statement, because the official club communication still provides for the sports club to be presented as a small outsider. As a club that has to be very happy if it gets through a season without serious worries about relegation. Internally, people obviously think differently; beyond the Baden tendency to pessimism, there is a healthy sense of reality in the SC. Those responsible know pretty well how good their team is at the moment.
development in all areas
This Saturday, the Freiburgers will play in a duel for the European Cup places at Borussia Dortmund (3.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and on Sky), where they were able to win for the first time. It’s been over 20 years now. Anyone who listens to Christian Streich before this game can sense the self-confidence that also impressed Doan when he was courted by Freiburg in May last year. In view of BVB’s recent winning streak, there have been “better times” for such a match, says the coach, “but we have expectations of ourselves, including in Dortmund, we are positive that we can stand up to them”.
Freiburg no longer travel to the Revier as a clear outsider, but as a team that was better than BVB in the unfortunate 3-1 defeat in the first leg. In most phases of the season, SC was ahead of Dortmund in the table, now they are level on points. The income increases after the move to the new stadium, the number of members has doubled within a short time. And above all, the quality of the players develops.
In the ranking of the squad values, the Freiburgers are listed in ninth place, just like before the season, only clubs that have played in the Champions League at least once in the past five years are better. Competitors who once seemed unassailable, such as Cologne, Schalke, Stuttgart, Bremen and HSV, have been surpassed. And Doan, who with a transfer fee of 8.5 million euros is the second most expensive newcomer in the club’s history after Baptiste Santamaria (10 million), embodies a new phase of development.
“Scary” World Cup performance
After several good years, the Freiburgers were interested in equipping their overall stable and well-functioning team with special and rare special skills. For example, with a player who, as a skilled dribbler, can tear holes without the whole team having to run many kilometers and play dozens of passes beforehand: Ritsu Doan, who came to the Black Forest from PSV Eindhoven.
The case is similar with Michael Gregoritsch, whose powerful header game in the opponent’s penalty areas is also a new element. Freiburg can now also afford players who fall into the “individualists” category, even if such types have to work just as hard for the collective here as everyone else.
If some invest a few percent less, they sometimes lose 0:6 at VfL Wolfsburg like two weeks ago. The long winter break in second place in the table was probably not so good for the heads, suspects Streich. But at least in the case of Doan, the Bundesliga free time was highly enjoyable, the 24-year-old Japanese is now an internationally known star.
Freiburg for Doan like “Family”
Meanwhile, there was concern that his good performances in Qatar and his crucial World Cup goals in Japan’s victories over Spain and Germany could encourage English clubs to bid Doan millions of dollars that sensible management could not refuse.
Streich says he found Doan’s World Cup performance “scary” because Doan was so conspicuous. And because he made a decisive contribution to the end of the DFB team with his goals, which the Freiburg coach didn’t like so much. But the little dribbler doesn’t really want to leave.
Doan compared the SC to a “family” in a conversation, says Streich, who has probably never had such a well-functioning team together. Hardly any player is injured, and one of the strengths of the first half of the season was that the coach was often able to change the entire offensive after about an hour and then play the start-up game with fresh energy, which wears down the opposing players.
They still don’t want to give up their understatement. “We’re going to an away game now, and we know the last away game,” says Streich, alluding to Wolfsburg’s minor downfall. He can be pretty sure that this won’t happen again, because the SC was just as strong as before the World Cup.
