SC Freiburg is having a remarkable season. A title dream is still alive – but how fresh are the Baden team for the Europa League semi-finals in Braga?
The backdrop of the famous Felsenstadion fits the feat that SC Freiburg is about to perform. The people of Baden don’t come to the Estádio Municipal to knock stones, but to play football. It will be sweaty Europa League semi-final first leg at Sporting Braga on Thursday (from 9 p.m. in the audio live stream) but definitely. The sports club is clearly feeling the effects of its mammoth program these days. Now, in the all-important phase of this remarkable season, it’s about not letting up.
DFB Cup drama left traces in Stuttgart
The game in Portugal is the next “highlight game” for Freiburg, as Maximilian Eggestein put it. “All the grains should be back,” said the midfielder. Eggestein is one of the long-running favorites at SC. He missed the first leg of the round of 16 at Belgian representative KRC Genk due to a red card suspension. Otherwise, he has been on the pitch in all of Freiburg’s 47 competitive games so far this season – and always in the starting line-up.
Audio tip
SWR Sport broadcasts the Football Europa and Conference League games live in audio stream. On Thursday, April 30, 2026, from 9 p.m the semi-final first leg in the Europa League Sporting Braga – SC Freiburg live in Audio stream on swr.de/sporton sportschau.de and in ARD Sounds.
Also in League away game at Borussia Dortmund (0:4), where the SC picked up its almost traditional slap last Sunday. Freiburg rarely looked good at BVB. This time, marked by the dramatic semi-final exit in the DFB Cup at VfB Stuttgart, but particularly bad. Of course, he noticed that the bitter 1-2 defeat after extra time three days earlier had lasted over 120 minutes, said Eggestein.
Schuster’s indispensable axis returns
In addition to the high pressure on Freiburg this season, the game in Dortmund also illustrated how important top players Matthias Ginter, Johan Manzambi and Yuito Suzuki are for SC. The trio was missing due to injury. An axis that is difficult to replace for coach Julian Schuster. Ginter, the defense chief, has been impressing with strong performances for weeks and is fighting with all his might for a place in the German World Cup squad. Manzambi, the Swiss midfield jewel, is the linchpin of Freiburg’s game. Suzuki, the lively Japanese, creates special moments offensively. All three have played an enormous part in the SC’s triumph so far.
The rested top performers are returning for the game in Portugal and are “fully ready for action again,” confirmed coach Julian Schuster on Wednesday evening in Braga. “It was certainly good for everyone to have these days to recover accordingly,” said Schuster, “we can plan fully with them.”
SC coach Julian Schuster feels “tingling”
Load control is a big topic for the coach in the fourth English week in a row, but his anticipation of the game in Braga is in no way dampened by the tight program: “When you see the stadium for the first time, it immediately starts to tingle,” said the 41-year-old, “we really appreciate that we can play this game.” Schuster is convinced that the opponents from Braga won’t make it easy for the sports club: “They have an incredible number of facets, especially with the ball.”
However, he doesn’t feel any nervousness among his professionals, despite the sports club’s historic opportunity to reach a final in a European competition for the first time. Rather, he perceives a “clear focus on the task”: “It is our aim to build on our achievements of the last few weeks,” said Schuster.
Now that the national final dream has been shattered, it is important to keep the international one alive. The Freiburg team have already come this far on the road to Istanbul, where the Europa League final will take place on May 20th. Now they want to go the last few meters and overcome the tricky Braga hurdle.
Freiburg’s Vincenzo Grifo: “If you don’t have strength, you’re out of place”
“It’s incredibly intense, the pace we go week after week,” said striker Igor Matanovic before the first leg against the fourth-placed team in the Portuguese league. It is all the more important that every player in the squad is always ready to “give 120 percent,” he said. “We need every single one.”
SC captain Christian Günter has no doubt that the grains are there even after the strain of the last few weeks: “When the referee blows the whistle, the adrenaline alone will be enough to be able to march. We don’t need to look for excuses.” Vincenzo Grifo even went one step further: “If you don’t have any strength tomorrow, you’re definitely out of place,” the midfielder made clear after the last training session before the game.
SC Freiburg follows European Cup winners Frankfurt?
Only one German team has ever won the successor competition to the UEFA Cup: Eintracht Frankfurt four years ago. Can the Breisgauers follow the Hessians, with whom they are still fighting for seventh place in the Bundesliga? First of all, the show of strength awaits them in Braga’s famous rock stadium.
