The mood in and around the Europa-Park Stadion is at its best these days. And why wouldn’t it be? Freiburg got their season underway with two hard-fought victories away at Kaiserslautern and Augsburg. The opponent in front of a sold out stadium this Friday, however, are set to poise the Breisgauer a new challenge early on in the campaign.

With Edin Terzic once again at the helm, Borussia Dortmund proved in pre-season that they’re aiming for higher than second place this year. Niklas Süle, Karim Adeyemi, Salih Özcan and most recently Anthony Modeste are all additions that seriously strengthen the BVB squad – even if they will miss Erling Haaland after his departure.

Aside from Modeste, only one more of these new arrivals may find themselves in the squad. Nico Schlotterbeck returns to his former home 83 days after his final competitive game for Freiburg in the Pokal final. “We’re not preparing to face him any differently,” said Christian Streich during a press conference on Thursday. “We know how he plays and his style. Nico has a good strike of the ball, he can switch it well, and gets forward. We will discuss that, but not too much.”

In fact, Modeste, who was only signed by the Black-Yellows at the start of the week from Köln, “knows Phillipp Lienhart, Matze Ginter, Keven Schlotterbeck and Manuel Gulde well. Dortmund have the players who can dribble well on the wings and then put in a cross. In the box, Modeste then has tremendous ability.”

The Freiburg coach didn’t reveal how his side were planning to counter this strength on Thursday.  “We could always go five-at-the-back, we’ve got the squad for that. Last year, we benefitted from using multiple systems,” Streich said. After a good performance against Augsburg, there would be few reasons to make big changes.

Borussia also won their first game of the season. Club captain Marco Reus scored the winner in a 1-0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen at the Signal Iduna Park, and at BVB coach Terzic’s press conference on Wednesday, he noted similarities between the playing styles of Leverkusen and of the Breisgauer. “Freiburg are, like Leverkusen, quite aggressive. In the second half of the Leverkusen game, we were chasing the ball a lot, we lost it a few times. That can cost you energy, so we’ve got to protect that and look after the ball better.”

Christian Streich remembers the last meeting with Borussia Dortmund under Terzic, a 2-1 victory in February 2021, fondly: "When you play against the same team for years and seemingly always lose, it’s not so nice. It's better if you have a positive in there somewhere. The last few years, we've almost always put in good performances against Dortmund." But a 5-1 loss in the second half of last season showed something quite different: "It can always be the case against Dortmund that you take a thrashing.”

Freiburg fans should be encouraged by the recent home record, however. In front of a home crowd, SC have lost just one of their last five matches – with two victories among them.  

Photo: Achim Keller