Sport After 29 years
“This club is my life” – Christian Streich is quitting in Freiburg
Status: 18.03.2024 | Reading time: 3 minutes
After 29 years at the club – Christian Streich is leaving SC Freiburg
After 29 years together, Christian Streich and SC Freiburg are going their separate ways. The Breisgauer coach is quitting at the end of the season. “It is the right time,” emphasizes Streich at the official announcement.
No one has been the head coach of a Bundesliga club for longer than him. But now Christian Streich will give up his position at SC Freiburg in the summer. The club officially announced this on Monday morning. Streich expresses himself comprehensively.
Christian Streich will relinquish the position of head coach at SC Freiburg at the end of the season after more than twelve years. The Baden Bundesliga soccer team announced this on Monday, and a successor has not yet been determined. Streich is currently by far the longest-serving coach of the current Bundesliga clubs. He has worked for SC Freiburg since 1995, when the now 58-year-old started as a youth coach in Breisgau.
“I thought about it for a long time and had a lot of conversations, but I believe that after 29 years, now is the right time to make room for new energies, new people and new opportunities,” said Streich. He didn’t want to miss the right time to leave.
“Always move forward and keep your head up”
Streich continued: “I had hundreds of extraordinary experiences during my time at the sports club. This club is my life and I am grateful for the great love and support that I have received here. I’m looking forward to the future for this club and I know that very good decisions will be made and that things will continue here as they have in recent years and decades – always moving forward and keeping your head up, even when things were difficult. “
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Freiburg’s board member Jochen Saier was quoted as saying in the club’s announcement: “We have been in an intensive, very trusting and emotional exchange of ideas with Christian over the past few weeks – at the end of which there is a decision that we regret, but can fully respect and understand. However, the moment to finally acknowledge this very special time has not yet come, as the journey together does not end here and today. There is still too much to achieve together in the remaining eight Bundesliga games.”
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Streich took over the role as SC head coach during the winter break of the 2011/2012 season. At the end of the current season, he will step down as the second-longest-serving coach among the current Bundesliga coaches, with a term of almost twelve and a half years without interruption at a club. Only Frank Schmidt from 1. FC Heidenheim will be in office for a few more years, but is only playing his debut season in the Bundesliga with FCH.
Great popularity beyond sports
Streich led the down-to-earth Freiburg team to the round of 16 of the Europa League twice and to the final of the DFB Cup two years ago, but was also relegated once with them in 2015. However, the club stuck with him at the time and was immediately promoted again.
He also enjoys great popularity beyond sports. He has also taken a clear stance on political and social issues in recent years. In mid-January, he called on the Germans to take a “very clear stance” against right-wing extremism. “If you don’t get up now, you haven’t understood anything. (….) It’s five minutes to twelve. (….) Everyone in this country is called upon to stand up and take a clear position in their family circles, at work or elsewhere,” said the South Baden native at the time.
With Streich, the league is losing one of the few guys left. It wasn’t just his dialect and his often very emotional nature that made him stand out on the sidelines. Many fans saw him as a kind of clear conscience for the increasingly commercialized football industry.
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In recent seasons he has only extended his contract with SC by one year. This was also a rather unusual procedure. There will now be no continuation in Freiburg. Instead, the club has to start looking for a successor. He will have big shoes to fill.
