Nine months of relentless action

There were precisely 278 days between the season opener, which saw SC travel to Lotte for the first round of the DFB-Pokal in mid-August, and the Europa League final in Istanbul. The 54 competitive matches played during this period not only set a new club record, but also meant that the Breisgauers were in action, on average, every 5.1 days across the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and Europa League.

Anywhere we go…

Despite the demanding schedule, the team could always rely on vocal support both at the Europa-Park Stadion and away from home. A total of just under 85,000 tickets were sold for the 29 away fixtures available to SC supporters. On average, around 3,000 fans followed the team for each game across Germany and Europe.

I would walk 500 miles…

Let’s keep looking at those away days for now. The longest journey, unsurprisingly, was to Istanbul. There are 1,842 kilometres as the crow flies between the Europa-Park Stadion and Beşiktaş Park, where the final against Aston Villa took place on 20th May. Next on the list are the Estádio Municipal in Braga (1,467 kilometres) and the Estadio Balaídos in Vigo (1,447 kilometres). These are mere short hops compared to the longest trip in the club’s history, though, which took Freiburg to Baku in November 2022, clocking in at a distance of 3,409 kilometres.

The marathon man

With Maximilian Eggestein, SC Freiburg had both a true ever-present and a tireless workhorse in its ranks last season. The 29-year-old only missed the first leg of the Europa League round of 16 in Genk due to a suspension following a red card; otherwise, he featured in every match, playing 90 or even 120 minutes each time. This amounts to an impressive 4,793 minutes of game time. In the Bundesliga alone, Eggestein covered a total of 406.9 kilometres – the most in the league, ahead of Hoffenheim’s Vladimir Coufal (402.8 km) and Mainz 05’s Kaishu Sano (401.1 km). That’s the equivalent of almost ten marathons.

Milestones and records galore

The sheer number of personal milestones achieved by SC players this season would fill far more space than this article allows. We’ll therefore highlight just three personal achievements and two records.

With his substitution appearance on matchday 30 against Heidenheim, Philipp Lienhart not only reached the milestone of 250 competitive matches for SC, but also drew level with Boubacar Diarra in twelfth place on the club’s all-time appearance list – a position he has since surpassed by a further eight matches.

Further up the rankings, Lucas Höler sits in fifth place, having made his 300th appearance for SCF in the narrow defeat to FC Bayern München in April.

Vincenzo Grifo, meanwhile, celebrated both his 350th competitive appearance and 106th goal in an SC shirt this season. With his strike against KRC Genk, the German-Italian forward overtook the club’s previous record goalscorer, Nils Petersen, in the spring.

A few months earlier, Christian Günter had himself moved into first place by a different statistic. His appearance in the home win against FC St. Pauli in November not only represented his 441st game for SC Freiburg, but also saw him become the club’s all-time record appearance maker. A further 27 matches followed by the end of the season, extending his lead over Andreas Zeyer even further.