SC Freiburg: Why Julian Schuster has become “coach of the year”

Julian Schuster is “coach of 2025”. A 40 -year -old coach after his first season as head coach. Did he deserve that?

When I read who won the choice as “coach of the year”, I was surprised: Julian Schuster as the coach of the year? If Florian Wirtz as a footballer and Giulia Gwinn are also chosen as the footballer of the year, would I have given my voice for Julian Schuster? But here are five reasons why this choice falls on the right one.

1. Sports success and Europa League qualification

Julian Schuster was under pressure at the beginning of last season. After coaching legend Christian Streich, who had received the award himself in 2022, Schuster should take over the Bundesliga team. Completely understandable from the club’s perspective: he knew the structures, knew how the club ticked, and worked closely with the young players as a connecting trainer. Only one thing was missing in his curriculum vitae: experience as a Bundesliga head coach. So he had to prove himself and did this convincingly from a sporting point of view: SC Freiburg narrowly missed the Champions League qualification and ended the season in fifth place in the table – The Sport-Club International is already playing.

So the team under Schuster tied the sporting development of the past seasons seamlessly. His players showed refreshing offensive pressing and, after a small defeat series with many goals, also had a phase with impressive defensive stability. Players like Ritsu Doan, who left the club for the new season, increased their potential under Schuster again.

Many sports journalists will have surprised that Schuster, despite the often mentioned “severe heritage”, the associated pressure from outside and without head coaching experience of leading the team into the upper third of the table, will surprise many sports journalists.

2. A feeling for young players and their needs

Manzambi, Rosenfelder, Atubolu, Makengo, Röhl, Ogbus – These young players in the current squad have a past in the Freiburg football school. Julian Schuster accompanied them as a liaison trainer between the football school and professionals. Sometimes you wonder how many Bundesliga-suitable youngsters he still has in the hindquarters. He seems to have a knack for the offspring, of course players want to continue and develop and develop in terms of football, but also humanly. Last season, for example, he has Johan Manzambi on the starting element and the first Bundesliga goal. Such stories also make you take notice and have to be related to clever analysis and correct intuition of the trainer. Schuster’s “hands for the young players” – This is also a good reason for the award for the “Trainer of the Year”.

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3. Kluger and clear communicator

The time as a connecting trainer gave Julian Schuster a big wealth of experience: How different about players deal with defeats? Then who needs what? Then, then as now, the basis was and is the real interest in humans behind the player. This also applies to the players and employees, he says in the “Kicker” interview about his award. So stand and fall.

Honesty and transparency help to tell a player that he is not in the starting eleven or even in the squad. The analyst Schuster is said to be able to convey factual arguments empathetically. I like to think that these decisions are difficult for him. That he feels this, as well. And one more thing: I also buy him that he appreciates when a player reacts after a difficult conversation in the sense of the collective.

This is how he described Christian Günter’s behavior last season: Some sports journalists might not have believed that he put the captain Günter or veteran Nicolas Höfler on the bench in several games. However, he has proven that he can also solve such situations and personal (he himself was a teammate of Christian Günter and is friends with Nicolas Höfler privately) and can separate sporty wise and understandable. This testifies to the necessary empathy that it takes to conduct a squad and manage its moods.

4. Team of SC Freiburg awarded

“Individual awards are always a reflection of a team performance in football. In Freiburg, this is particularly true,” said Schuster in the “Kicker” interview on the award. “Coach team, staff and players worked out of the first day. To meet a team that is ready to engage in and follow you and follow you.

It shows his understanding and understanding of the association of cooperation – for years it has been the message that shines from the SC to the outside world. And Julian Schuster not only says this because the others are also in the list. It seems as if he thinks and feels the same way. For example, he introduced that the physiotherapists can divide the Sunday missions that are reliable on Sundays – because as a family man, he probably knows exactly how important the distance from the job is.

The gratitude that he brings his fellow human beings in the sports club, everyone who works in his environment is absolutely credible. Such characteristics of an authentic trainer are pleasant in the football business and may have brought him one or the other voice.

5. Can be criticized, open, personable, personable

And finally, the sympathy about voting is also decided to make a bit. Even if the press conferences under Schuster have become calmer and shorter than under prank, they are just as exciting. The field of public relations also works seriously – attentively, open, open and sometimes funny. He is self -critical, demands feedback from the players to his job, according to his own statement often follows his intuition and exudes sovereignty.

The sporting success is not a matter of course for him, in setbacks he sees the potential for further development. And Julian Schuster looks calm, calm, clearly in what he does as a coach. His former teammate Nils Petersen congratulated the award in the “kicker” with the words. “No showman, no loudspeaker, no self -portrayal.” I think this is appropriate – how pleasant in a shop where there are too many of it. And these properties alone would almost be enough, for a voice as a “coach of the year”.

Prize on Thursday, 21.8.2025 6:00 p.m., SWR Aktuell Baden-Württemberg, SWR BW