2026/2027 season

Bundesliga

Team page
Bundesliga · Team page
SC Freiburg
Head coach: Julian Schuster · 4-2-3-1
Rank
3rd
Pts
13
P
5
Form
🔥 Excellent

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings
9/10
Attack
9/10
Defence
9/10
Form
9/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:Medium

3rd with 13 pts from 5 matches: 4 wins, 1 draw, 0 defeats.

14 goals scored, 4 conceded.

SC Freiburg plays in Leverkusen.

Sportschau · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

SC Freiburg is still unbeaten, but now has three crisp tasks ahead of him - and wants to keep up against the supposedly larger teams.

kicker · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

In the BayArena, Leverkusen receives the tables Erste Freiburg.

Sportschau · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Who changes where? Who is where in the conversation? Who extends? In our transfer ticker you stay up to date.

kicker · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches
Wvs FC Schalke 04 (H) · 2-1
Dvs Eintracht Frankfurt (A) · 2-2
Wvs Borussia Mönchengladbach (H) · 5-0
Wvs SC Paderborn 07 (A) · 1-0
Wvs SV Werder Bremen (H) · 4-1
WWWWD
14 scored / 4 conceded over 5 matches played
Rest: 7 days since the last match · 1 match played in the last 15 days
Home form
3W - 0D - 0L
Away form
1W - 1D - 0L
Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match
2.8
Goals conceded per match
0.8
At home
11 scored · 2 conceded in 3 matches
Away
3 scored · 2 conceded in 2 matches
Over 2.5 goals
4 of 5
Both teams score
3 of 5
Clean sheets
2 of 5
Failed to score
0 of 5
Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How SC Freiburg play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity
Preferred system
4-2-3-1
Philosophy
Compact, disciplined block inherited from the Streich era, which Schuster continues by spreading creativity across several players rather than replacing Manzambi like for like; a 4-4-2 is used as an alternative when two strikers are fielded (Get German Football News analysis).
Attacking strengths
Very prolific start: 4-1 against Werder Bremen on matchday 1 (Yuito Suzuki hat-trick in the 29th, 48th and 55th minutes, Igor Matanović goal in the 45th) for 2.59 xG, after a 5-1 in the Cup at Düsseldorf and a 4-1 against Motherwell. Last season, by contrast, was modest (51 goals in 34 matchdays).
Defensive solidity
Question mark: 57 goals conceded in 2025-26 (goal difference -6, the worst in the top 8); Mio Backhaus, signed from Werder to replace Noah Atubolu, was involved in an unfortunate deflection on Motherwell's equaliser on 27/08. Only one goal conceded on matchday 1.
Pressing
Not verified: no source consulted provides a measure of Freiburg's pressing in 2026-27. Schuster himself criticised the lack of compactness and pressing shape in the friendly defeat against Fürth on 31/07.
Transitions
Not precisely verified. Get German Football News describes Yuito Suzuki as the link between the lines, capable of driving the forward surges himself; no figures available.
StrengthThree competitions approached with a large, stable squad; Suzuki in full statistical bloom after Manzambi's departure; new competition on the wings (Derry Scherhant, Cyriaque Irié); experienced backbone of Ginter - Lienhart - Günter - Eggestein - Grifo; very positive transfer balance (+€51.55m according to Get German Football News).
WeaknessLoss of the best creator (Manzambi) and of Merlin Röhl in the same year; left-back spot contested between Günter, Yılmaz and Makengo; load management for Vincenzo Grifo (33); a new first-choice goalkeeper settling in; risk of the Bundesliga / Conference League / Cup workload piling up.

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood
Squad confidence
Confidence is at its peak: three wins in three competitive matches, European qualification secured 7-2 on aggregate against Motherwell and an indisputable 4-1 against Werder to open the league season. Yuito Suzuki, named man of the match, has gone top of the scoring charts and confirms that he has absorbed Johan Manzambi's departure. The trip to Paderborn on Saturday 5 September at 15:30 gives the club the chance to build on that before the cup and European double. The one unknown remains managing the workload of a squad involved in three competitions.
Coach / players / board relationship
The sporting department again applied its usual line: loaning Noah Atubolu to Frankfurt rather than selling him cheaply, buying and then immediately loaning Louey Ben Farhat back to Karlsruher SC, and completing the squad with Yannik Engelhardt and Keisuke Gotō. The continuity also shows in the club's structure, where Klemens Hartenbach continues to run an academy conceived as a direct extension of the first team. Julian Schuster works without visible friction with that board, which has given him time to develop Christian Streich's legacy. No public divergence has been reported.
Mood with the supporters
The mood is very favourable after a Europa League final played in May, a return to Europe and a successful league opener. The club also continues a formalised dialogue with its supporter groups, as the Fan-Talk devoted to women's football scheduled for 9 September at the Dreisamstadion shows, open to all with no registration. Ongoing works at the stadium restrict access to the P1 car park, which is the only organisational point flagged to spectators. No tension with the board or the players has been reported.
Pressure on the head coach
There is no pressure on Julian Schuster at this stage. He took the club to the 2026 Europa League final and a 7th-place finish, then opened the new season with three wins in three competitive matches. The public debate is about managing rotation across the Bundesliga, the Conference League and the cup, not about his position. His ability to bring through Yuito Suzuki after Johan Manzambi's departure further strengthens his credit.
Club objectives
The stated objective remains improving on 7th place in 2025-26 while staying competitive in Europe and integrating the new signings. The European schedule is now known: six Conference League league-phase matches against Panathinaikos, FC Twente and FK Jablonec at home, AS Monaco, Trabzonspor and Žalgiris Kaunas away, with the opener provisionally set for 15 October. The club are also in the DFB-Pokal, with the second-round draw on 5 September. Media projections put the realistic objective between 5th and 8th, but that is not an official club target.
Recent internal tensions
The summer saga around Noah Atubolu's future left some traces, the goalkeeper himself having referred to a difficult summer and “things that should not happen”. No other friction point has been reported inside the group. The open competition at left-back between Christian Günter, Berkay Yılmaz and Jordy Makengo, like Mio Backhaus's adaptation in goal, are presented as sporting issues rather than conflicts. The main internal risk remains the pile-up of matches on a mid-sized squad.
Absences
InjuredFlorent Muslija — Cruciate ligament rupture according to FotMob; return expected around the end of December 2026. Long-term absence of a wide attacking option.
InjuredPatrick Osterhage — Muscle injury according to FotMob, absence estimated at 1 to 2 weeks. Deprives Schuster of a rotation option in defensive midfield.
DoubtfulRihito Yamamoto — Fitness deficit according to FotMob (“a few weeks”); already absent from the training camp at the end of July for load management. Summer signing not yet operational.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

Bayer Leverkusen — SC Freiburg

AwaySunday 18 October at 15:30Matchday 6
It's today. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says
Prediction
EstimateBayer Leverkusen — SC Freiburg
43 %
1 · Bayer Leverkusen
20 %
X · draw
37 %
2 · SC Freiburg
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 5 matches played by Bayer Leverkusen, 5 matches by SC Freiburg. Confidence: medium
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
  1. League average. 193 goals scored over 104 team-matches played (18 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 1.86 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
  2. Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
    TeamGoalsRawKept
    Bayer Leverkusen — attack14 in 5 matches1.511.23
    Bayer Leverkusen — defence8 in 5 matches0.860.94
    SC Freiburg — attack14 in 5 matches1.511.23
    SC Freiburg — defence4 in 5 matches0.430.74
    The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.45 for Bayer Leverkusen and 0.45 for SC Freiburg. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
  3. Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 2.23 goal scored on average by the host against 1.48 by the visitor, over the 44 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.51; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.42, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.19. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
  4. Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
    Bayer Leverkusen at home: 3.00 pts/match versus 2.00 overall over 2 matches → ×1.100
    SC Freiburg away: 2.00 pts/match versus 2.60 overall over 2 matches → ×0.954
  5. Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
    λBayer Leverkusen = 1.86 × 1.23 × 0.74 × 1.19 × 1.100 = 2.22
    λSC Freiburg = 1.86 × 1.23 × 0.94 × 0.954 = 2.04
  6. Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 43.3%, draw 20.0%, away win 36.8% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 2-2 (only 7.2%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
  • It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
  • The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
  • γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
  • The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
  • No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Goalkeepers
  • Mio Backhaus
  • Florian Müller
  • Jannik Huth
Defenders
  • Matthias Ginter
  • Philipp Lienhart
  • Christian GünterC
  • Philipp Treu
  • Lukas Kübler
  • Max Rosenfelder
  • Jordy Makengo
  • Berkay Yılmaz
  • Anthony Jung
  • Bruno Ogbus
Midfielders
  • Maximilian Eggestein
  • Yannik Engelhardt
  • Vincenzo Grifo
  • Yuito Suzuki
  • Patrick Osterhage
  • Rihito Yamamoto
  • Rouven Tarnutzer
Forwards
  • Igor Matanović
  • Keisuke Goto
  • Lucas Höler
  • Jan-Niklas Beste
  • Derry Scherhant
  • Cyriaque Irié
  • Florent Muslija
Squad last verified on 31 Aug 2026 — source: sport.de (Kader 2026/2027) for the list; captaincy confirmed by the official SC Freiburg website (28/07/2026).

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss18 Oct 2026
Listen live: Bayer Leverkusen against SC Freiburg - Bundesliga
Source: Sportschau
rss18 Oct 2026
From 3.30 pm live - Bayer Leverkusen against SC Freiburg
Source: Sportschau
rss16 Oct 2026
Women's Bundesliga: RB Leipzig celebrates overpayment victory at SC Freiburg
Source: Sportschau
rss16 Oct 2026
Now live - SC Freiburg against RB Leipzig
Source: Sportschau
rss16 Oct 2026
Kübler remains in Freiburg - Bellingham to extend early
Source: kicker
rss16 Oct 2026
"The fans can dream" - SC Freiburg again with great European desire
Source: Sportschau
Transfers3 Sep 2026
Goalkeeper Noah Atubolu, developed at the club for more than ten years, was loaned to Eintracht Frankfurt just before the season started. He referred to a difficult summer: “It was not an easy period, because things happened that should not happen,” while thanking SC Freiburg for their support.
Source: Fussballdaten
Supporters2 Sep 2026
On Wednesday 9 September at 18:00 the club is holding a Fan-Talk devoted to women's football in the main stand of the Dreisamstadion, with Birgit Bauer-Schick, head coach Marco Konrad and captain Lisa Karl; entry is free with no registration. Because of the works under way at the stadium, the P1 car park is not accessible.
Source: Site officiel du SC Freiburg
Transfers1 Sep 2026
Deadline day saw Louey Ben Farhat bought from Karlsruher SC before being immediately loaned back there, a deal intended to secure the young Tunisian's future.
Source: Fussballdaten
Transfers1 Sep 2026
The summer window ended with the arrivals of midfielder Yannik Engelhardt, from Como, and Japanese forward Keisuke Gotō from Anderlecht, while Junior Adamu joined Schalke 04.
Source: Bundesliga.com
Club31 Aug 2026
Lukas Kübler celebrated his 34th birthday by playing his 200th Bundesliga match in a Sport-Club shirt against Werder Bremen, after eleven seasons at the club.
Source: Site officiel du SC Freiburg
Club31 Aug 2026
Klemens Hartenbach, head of the academy, looked back on his years working with Christian Streich around the football school and the academy. He admits he often doubted the club's ability to compete financially with the rest of the Bundesliga: “Those doubts have always been swept away, again and again.”
Source: Site officiel du SC Freiburg
Club31 Aug 2026
The U17s took their first win of the season in the DFB-Nachwuchsliga, 2-1 against SV Waldhof Mannheim at the Möslestadion, thanks to Otso Ala-Jäaski (63) and Mahir Madak (80). Head coach Ivica Banović praised the commitment of a group visibly tired by a busy week.
Source: Site officiel du SC Freiburg
Result30 Aug 2026
Freiburg produced the weekend's biggest win after Bayern by beating Werder Bremen 4-1 at home on matchday 1, with a control praised even in the opposition camp.
Source: Site officiel du SC Freiburg
Other30 Aug 2026
Perfect Bundesliga opener: 4-1 against Werder Bremen with a Yuito Suzuki hat-trick (29', 48', 55') and an Igor Matanović goal (45'); xG 2.59 to 0.73.
Source: Bundesliga.com
European competition28 Aug 2026
The Conference League league-phase draw, held in Nyon, sends Freiburg to AS Monaco, Trabzonspor and Žalgiris Kaunas, and gives them Panathinaikos, FC Twente and FK Jablonec at home. The league phase has only six matches and Julian Schuster's team's first game is provisionally set for 15 October.
Source: Wochenblatt-Reporter
News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.