Sports director Jochen Saier has been working on the SC Freiburg squad for nine years – with great success. Nevertheless, Saier likes to leave the big performances to others.
His Wikipedia entry consists of only six lines. It was created in August 2016 – by then Jochen Saier had already been sports director or sports director at SC Freiburg for three years. Saier likes to fly under the radar in his work, his sparse Wikipedia article is indicative of this. While other sports directors can be seen at press conferences and in TV interviews every week, Saier prefers to hold back. In any case, the 44-year-old is not known as a loudspeaker.
Rather, he is valued for his meticulousness. He does his joint work in the background, which he coordinated closely with sports director Klemens Hartenbach and CFO Oliver Leki right from the start. “Serious work” is what he once called this way of working in an interview. And how seriously Saier and his team work can be clearly seen in the development of SC Freiburg.
Hartenbach and Saier: From an interim to a permanent solution
Together with Hartenbach, the native of Lahr came into office in 2013 as an interim successor to the outgoing sports director Dirk Dufner. A little later, the provisional solution became a permanent one – since 2014 Saier has held the post of sports director. As is so often the case with the sports club: a long-term solution designed to promote constant development. And with success. During Saier’s tenure, the SC continued to develop, and failures such as relegation in 2015 did not deter the club from the path it had taken.
The fact that the Hartenbach-Saier duo complement each other perfectly is a result of many years of work in the club. On the one hand Hartenbach, who for years as head of the scouting department scrutinized the talents of other clubs. On the other side Saier, who as head of the football school looked after the club’s own talents. A construct that on the one hand ensures a certain permeability between youth teams and professionals, but on the other hand also has targeted reinforcements from the competition in mind.
Permeability between youth and professionals is important
The duo’s tenure included commitments such as those of Nils Petersen, Caglar Söyüncü, Vincenzo Grifo and Nico Schlotterbeck – all of them players who were also well-known competitors. But also homegrown talents like Christian Günter and Alexander Schwolow made it through to the pros. What is striking is that despite the now significantly improved “depth” of the Freiburg squad, the focus at the SC is still on training and further education. With Killiann Sildillia and Kevin Schade, there are currently at least two players from Christian Streich’s youth squad who should be on the verge of the much-cited breakthrough this year. So the mixture of “new” and “old” fits – and will continue to do so.
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After a strong season, which SC Freiburg ended in 6th place and thus qualified for the Europa League, the expectations and the own standards at the sports club have increased.
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Euphoria in Breisgau
There is currently a lot of praise for the squad planning at Dreisam – no wonder that Saier himself has faced some rumors of a change. So far, however, the Freiburg sports director has withstood advances from financially stronger clubs. Freiburg should be happy. In any case, great satisfaction is currently the order of the day in Breisgau. While SC fans have often looked with concern at a season with participation in the Europa League in recent years, the fans in the 2022/23 season are relatively relaxed for the first time.
The squad seems to be prepared for the triple burden – an achievement that Saier and Hartenbach can rightly be proud of. Even the departure of national player Nico Schlotterbeck was compensated by the surprising signing of homegrown player and world champion Matthias Ginter. There are also reinforcements from sought-after players such as Daniel-Kofi Kyereh (joined from St. Pauli) and Ritsu Doan (PSV Eindhoven) and Vincenzo Grifo’s contract extension. So players who were also on the list at many other clubs – and still decided for tranquil Freiburg.
“Proud not to have a Wikipedia entry”
Of course, these recent notable successes did not change anything about Jochen Saier’s Wikipedia entry. The one of only two “individual references” that can be found about him on Wikipedia is also characteristic of Saier’s reticence. “Proud not to have a Wikipedia entry,” reads the article by colleagues from “Spox”, which is given here as a source. In 2014 he said that. It was to be another two years before the name of Jochen Saier could be found in the world’s largest digital encyclopedia.
The new episode of “Your SCF” on YouTube
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