Freiburg's Bundesliga position, broken down

Seventh place, and it could have been worse

Freiburg went to Hamburg on 10 May and lost 2-3, which for a side that had kept themselves reasonably comfortable in the top half felt like the moment the season threatened to go sideways. Seven days later they beat RB Leipzig 4-1 at home, which is the kind of result that makes you forget the Hamburg game ever happened, at least until you look at the table again and remember the goal difference still sits at minus six after thirty-four games.

Seventh in the Bundesliga is a reasonable place to be. I am not going to pretend otherwise. In an eighteen-team division, finishing in the top seven is a positive outcome for a club of Freiburg's resources, and 47 points gives them a cushion above the scramble in the lower half. But seventh is also a position that raises a question worth sitting with: were they genuinely better than the eight teams below them, or did the table just shake out that way? A negative goal difference after a full season in seventh says something about the margins involved. It says the wins were not convincing enough to outweigh the losses, and there were thirteen of those.

The Freiburg club hub covers their European history, and that context matters here. because seventh is the sort of finish that keeps the conversation going about whether this squad can push into the top six and chase continental football seriously. This season, the answer was mostly no. But mostly no is not the same as never, and the Leipzig result gave everyone connected to the club a slightly better feeling about the summer than that HSV defeat had allowed.

Matanovic is carrying the goals

Eleven league goals and two assists for Igor Matanovic. For a side that scored fifty-one in the league, that means he contributed to roughly a quarter of everything Freiburg produced going forward. That is a heavy load for one player to carry, and I keep coming back to it when I think about what this attack actually looks like without him. Maximilian Philipp and Ifechukwu Ogbus are in the squad, and they provide options, but neither of them is posting numbers that suggest the burden is being shared evenly.

Fifty-one goals across thirty-four games works out to exactly 1.5 per game, which is functional without being exciting. For a seventh-placed side you might expect that to be higher, the teams above them in the Bundesliga tend to score more freely. What nags at me about that figure is not the total itself but the way the season delivered it unevenly. A 4-1 win over Leipzig flatters the average. The 1-1 draw at home to Wolfsburg on 3 May, a game they really needed to win to keep momentum, is the sort of result that keeps that goals-for column looking ordinary.

Matanovic is the one Freiburg fans will be watching for transfer rumours this summer. Eleven goals at this level attracts attention, and if he moves on, whoever replaces him has a lot of ground to cover fast.

The squad by position, and where the gaps are

Between the sticks, Florian Müller and Jannik Huth give Freiburg solid cover. Two senior goalkeepers of that experience level is probably the least of their worries heading into next season.

The back line is where I start to have questions. Philipp Lienhart, Karl Steinmann and Max Rosenfelder are the named central defensive options, and across a season where fifty-seven goals went in, the defence was clearly under pressure at various points. Three recognisable centre-backs is not a disaster but it is thin if injuries land at the wrong time, and it does not suggest a unit that can afford to lose a game because of a suspension or a knock.

The midfield group of Yuito Suzuki, Johan Manzambi and Rouven Tarnutzer is interesting. Three midfielders with distinct profiles. though I said I would not do the tidy list thing, gives the coaching staff something to work with in terms of how they set up. Whether those three are genuinely enough to compete for the top half again next season without reinforcement is a separate matter. The balance between defensive cover and creativity in midfield tends to define how Bundesliga sides of Freiburg's type perform, and if the summer brings a quality addition in that area, the ceiling shifts noticeably.

Up front, Matanovic, Philipp and Ogbus form a group that has done enough this season without convincing me it will be enough next season. If you check our predictions for Bundesliga sides heading into 2026-27, Freiburg's forward depth keeps coming up as the variable that makes them hard to place. The goals came, but too much of it ran through one player, and that is a structural fragility regardless of how the 4-1 against Leipzig looked.

There is also a broader point about squad depth across positions. Seven wins at home and a reasonable home record is fine, but the away form. losing in Hamburg, for instance, in the way they did, points to a group that is not always consistent when the environment is hostile. That is partly a tactical question and partly a squad-depth question, and the two are connected in ways the summer transfer window will need to address. Anyone looking at the match-by-match Kwiff review pages for Bundesliga games this season would have noticed Freiburg were rarely a side you could confidently call in either direction away from home.

Matanovic will define a lot of what comes next. If he is still at the club when the season kicks off, Freiburg have a genuine focal point around which to build something better than seventh. If he is not, the whole conversation about the squad's attacking options starts from a much harder place.