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Around a year and a half after his departure as coach of Bundesliga club SC Freiburg, Christian Streich has not ruled out returning as a coach in professional football. “I don’t know what I’ll be doing in a year or two,” the 60-year-old told the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”.
He obviously begrudges his successor Julian Schuster, who led Freiburg into the Europa League in his first year as a professional coach, his success. He is also not jealous of the 40-year-old, whom he trained as a player. The thought might arise: “Am I really that easy to replace?” But at the time he was convinced that Schuster “would be ideal for the club. What should I be jealous of now?”
However, what he misses most in his new life without a coaching position is “the daily exchange with the players, the trainers, the physios. The conversations and being close to familiar people,” explained the cult coach from South Baden. “I knew what I had to do every day for 29 years. That’s all gone, that scaffolding has been dismantled.”
Also inquiries from other clubs
Streich took over the Freiburg professionals in January 2012 and coached them until the end of the 2023/24 season. In these twelve and a half years he led the sports club into the Europa League three times, but was also relegated once. During this time there were also inquiries from other clubs, he explained. “But I always knew what an extraordinary environment I was allowed to work in.”
Despite the strong commercialization, the former Freiburg youth coach believes in the future of football. “20 years ago I thought that money was ruining football. Today I say: No. There will be scars. But this game will never be ruined,” explained Streich. The originality of the game should not be violated.