The pre-season friendly against the Saarland-based side, played in bright, summer conditions, didn’t just see 4,800 spectators flock to the Dreisamstadion to watch live, but the game also saw the debut of SCF’s new home kit for 2022/23, replicas of which could already be seen in the stands of the Dreisamstadion, with its red base and white vertical stripes, alongside the away and third kits, too. SC’s new kits have been available for purchase in the fan shop since Friday. 

The SCF team wore black armbands during the fixture in memory of Carmine Giacobone, a long-serving employee of SC Freiburg and Dreisamstadion groundskeeper, who sadly passed away at the beginning of June. 

“Elversberg are good on the ball, we were initially unable to get any control in the game, but after half time we found ourselves winning the ball back more frequently,” said head coach Christian Streich following his side’s first pre-season fixture. “We’ve made a good start in this first week of training, but today’s game wasn’t great. Once again, we know what we need to work on now.”  

SCF internationals Mark Flekken, Roland Sallai, Wooyeong Jeong, Ermedin Demirovic and Kiliann Sildillia, who all reported for national-team duty following the end of the regular season, were absent from the matchday squad. Those players will return to team training at the start of the coming week. Kevin Schade, who recently underwent an abdominal muscle operation, is now working individually on his recovery, and new signing Daniel Kofi-Kyereh will also wait until after this weekend to join up with the rest of his teammates in training, 

One of our other summer signings, Matthias Ginter, made another appearance at the stadium in which he made his Bundesliga debut in January 2012, during which he also scored his first Bundesliga goal. He certainly received a warm welcome from the fans in attendance. U23 players Max Rosenfelder and Vincent Vermeij were also included in the starting XI today. 

SV 07 Elversberg were Freiburg U23’s biggest rivals in the season-before-last's promotion race in the Regionalliga. SC Freiburg II were able to achieve promotion to the third tier for the first time that year, before Elversberg came up as Regionalliga Südwest champions last season, meaning they will be returning to the Dreisamstadion at some point this season for a competitive fixture against our second team. 

SC began the friendly with Ginter playing on the right of a back three. “That had to be done with the personnel we had available to us today,” explained Streich. “Otherwise, we probably would’ve had to have set up much differently.” After just one week of pre-season, the team initially appeared to be really enjoying the opportunity to play. SC keeper Benjamin Uphoff was able to keep out the visitors with their first chance after Jannik Rochelt was able to get a shot away from a tight angle around the ten-minute mark. 

Christian Günter’s 19th-minute strike saw the hosts take their first shot on goal before goalkeeper Uphoff was once again called into action. Nishan Burkart tripped Elversberg attacker Luca Schnellbacher whilst attempting to clear the ball from Freiburg’s penalty area, and the referee pointed to the spot. Uphoff saved Eros Dacaj’s spot-kick (20’) with a quick reaction save, preventing the visitors, who had put in a brave performance up to this point, from taking the lead.  

Freiburg’s next good opportunity also fell to Günter after some good combination play, with his flat shot forcing SVE keeper Nicolas Kristof into making a strong save (36’). And so, the match remained goalless at half time, as SCF’s Rosenfelder was forced off the pitch due to a suspected ligament tear, and so Kenneth Schmidt came into the back three. 

A completely different side began the second half for SCF, but the 3-4-3 system deployed in the first half remained. Alongside Maximilian Eggestein in the midfield was Robert Wagner, one of our U23 players, making his first appearance for the first team. Lucas Höler, Nils Petersen and Noah Weißhaupt made up the front three for the second period. 

Wagner’s 52nd-minute header was actually the first time SCF posed a threat on SVE’s goal in the second half. Just before this, substitute keeper Noah Atubolu was able to contribute positively to the game, making a save from Rochelt’s effort, and he also did very well against a later effort from Valdrin Mustafa (55’).  

The third-tier side, whose pre-season campaign has been underway for some time now, continued to perform courageously. Maximilian Eggestein tried to break the deadlock with a long-range effort (60’), and Keven Schlotterbeck headed a Hugo Siquet free kick just over the bar just moments later. 

However, the intensive sessions of the first week of pre-season only appeared noticeable in the closing phases of the game, as SCF created a string of good opportunities. Noah Weißhaupt got on the end of a long ball well but then missed Kristof’s goal (74’), and a sensational first-time effort from Höler also flew just past the far post (81’). 

After a late effort from Eggestein was pushed away for a corner, the final opportunity of the game fell to Schlotterbeck, who sent the ball high and wide. “In the second half, we pressed well in phases. We did some things well and some things not so well without the ball, and we also weren’t brilliant in possession ourselves today,” summarised Streich after the goalless draw. 

The SC head coach believes that today is a good opportunity to “leave everything that went wrong on the pitch and now solely focus on the work we have to do.” The team will be able to continue their work once their training camp begins in Schruns on Wednesday. Their next friendly will take place in Austria against Swiss side FC St. Gallen in a week’s time (9/7, 15:00 CEST). 

SC Freiburg:

First half: Uphoff – Ginter, Rosenfelder (44' Schmidt), Lienhart – Schmid, Höfler Keitel, Günter – Burkart, Vermeij, Grifo

Second half: Atubolu – Kübler, K. Schlotterbeck, Gulde – Siquet, Wagner, Eggestein, Ezekwem (70' Schmidt) – Höler, Petersen, Weißhaupt