When people talk about SC Freiburg in the Netherlands, all attention quickly turns to Mark Flek. The goalkeeper is having an impressive season with the revelation of the Bundesliga and has entered the winter break as a surprising number three behind Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. In Germany, however, the arrows are aimed at another indispensable link: Nico Schlotterbeck. The 22-year-old center defender single-handedly eliminated Erling Braut Haaland on the second day of play and is emphatically followed by Bayern Munich.
By Mart Oude Nijeweeme
“I’m not someone who aspires to play in England or Spain. I’ve always wanted to play in the Bundesliga, preferably with the best team,” Nico Schlotterbeck recently said in an interview with kicker. Those words indicate a statement rather than a hint. The central defender of Freiburg is having an extremely strong season and is open to making the step to the German record champion next summer. Schlotterbeck’s breakthrough comes at a very convenient time for Bayern, as Niklas Sule appears to be leaving the club on a free transfer and has openly expressed his desire to move to the Premier League.
Compared to Bayern’s current centre-backs, Schlotterbeck is not wrong. The Freiburg defender sends a long ball more often, has more interceptions, more defensive moves and fights a personal duel more often than Dayot Upamecano, Lucas Hernández and Süle, statistics from opta from. Looking at the percentages, Bayern’s current centre-backs come out better on the reports. For example, Süle has the highest percentage of tackles won with 72.7% and the German international also comes out best when it comes to won aerial duels and won personal duels.
Nico Schlotterbeck’s stats compared to current Bayern Munich central defenders.
Schlotterbeck is seen in Germany as one of the greatest talents of the Bundesliga. With Freiburg, the mandekker only collected sixteen hits from seventeen Bundesliga games, the fewest together with Bayern. The team of coach Christian Streich has also cleared seven times this season and is experiencing perhaps the best football season since 1994/95, when it finished third in the Bundesliga. He sees the fact that Schlotterbeck even managed to find the net a few times in December as the proverbial icing on the cake in the year of his breakthrough. The defender scored in the 0-6 away match against Borussia Mönchengladbach and was also accurate against TSG Hoffenheim a week later.
However, his goal celebration in the resounding victory over Gladbach caused quite a bit of commotion in Germany. Schlotterbeck spread both arms like a bodybuilder to face the home side’s fanatical supporters. As extra salt in the already deep wounds, it was said. After all, Gladbach already faced a 0-6 deficit at half-time. “That had nothing to do with Gladbach, I have respect for this great club,” Schlotterbeck said in the German media afterwards. “The goal celebration was arranged with my teammates because I go to the gym relatively often. I said, ‘If I ever score, I’ll show my muscles.’ I didn’t mean to offend any of the fans, I regret that afterwards. I don’t think I should have done it.”
The deliberate action of Nico Schlotterbeck towards the hard core of Borussia Mönchengladbach in the 0-6 won away game.
By early 2021, few people had heard of the name Schlotterbeck. The defender made only thirteen appearances in the main squad in the 2019/20 season, four times as a basic player, after which Freiburg decided to rent him out to 1. FC Union Berlin last season. In Berlin he struggled with a lingering muscle injury in the first half of the season, but he enjoyed complete confidence after the winter break and appeared in fourteen of the fifteen games at the kick-off. Schlotterbeck helped Union to seventh place in the Bundesliga and thus secured a ticket for the Conference League. Union did everything they could to keep the centre-back inboard longer, but had to watch Streich bring him back in person.
Since then, Freiburg’s defense has been built around the versatile left-footed stopper. Schlotterbeck can play in a 4-4-2 formation as well as a 3-5-2 formation. The twenty-something is tall, athletic, strong in the air, fast, reads the game well and excels at the game distribution. His elegance, according to many Germans, resembles that of Jens Nowotny, the 2002 World Cup finalist who, like Schlotterbeck, played in the Karlsruher SC youth academy. Like Nowotny, Schlotterbeck is expected to be able to take on a role as a controlling midfielder as well. Nowotny was part of the Karlsruher that caused a furore in the Bundesliga in the 1990s by invariably finishing in the left row.
Nico Schlotterbeck scores on behalf of 1. FC Union Berlin in the cup match against Karlsruher SC, the club where he played in the youth academy.
The club was therefore sorry that in 2017 it was forced to say goodbye to Schlotterbeck, who sought his salvation at Freiburg. “It was clear that Nico was going to establish himself as a top professional, but he has always remained level-headed and still maintains warm contacts with us,” Edmund Becker, Karslruher’s head of youth academy told us. ka-news. In Freiburg Nico Schlotterbeck was joined by his older brother Keven, who was one step ahead of him in terms of development. Keven was loaned to Union in the 2019/2020 season, a season earlier than Nico. The two jointly formed the heart of the Freiburg defense for the first time in April 2019.
“As small children we often played in the garden and dreamed of becoming a professional football player,” Nico told earlier this month Sports 1. “There are very few children who can make that dream come true. It is unbelievable that we have both achieved that dream. That is still the pinnacle of my career.” In a close second place, Schlotterbeck called his first call-up to the German national team. The defender first received a call from national coach Hansi Flick in August, who selected him for the World Cup qualifiers against Liechtenstein, Armenia and Iceland. Flick had received warm recommendations from Stefan Kuntz, who led Schlotterbeck and Young Germany to the European title last summer.
Schlotterbeck reigned supreme during the European Championship and was at the heart of the defense with Arminia Bielefeld defender Amos Pieper. Germany only conceded four goals in six games and also kept a clean sheet in the final against Portugal (1-0). With the first medal of his career, Schlotterbeck returned delighted to Freiburg, where he immediately caused a thunderous sensation on the second day of the Bundesliga by defeating Borussia Dortmund 2-1. The stopper had the clean job of taking out Haaland and he passed that test sovereignly. The Norwegian superstar was never spared and suffered the first league defeat of the season.
“This was my first game against a world-class striker,” Schlotterbeck told afterwards kicker. “It was special for me because I now finally know where I am and where I can grow. I can become a very good central defender, maybe I already am at the moment. What Haaland brings in terms of physical and “technical qualities is unprecedented. I had to stay focused throughout the game. He didn’t score and I realized that I could compete with his level strikers. It was an important experience. Since this season I know that I can stand my ground against any striker.” Hopefully there will be many more days like this,” said Schlotterbeck.
Confidence shot up in the youngster, who, to top it all off, received a phone call from Flick. Schlotterbeck has not yet made his debut with the German squad. He remained on the bench for the full ninety minutes of the five matches he was on the selection. He has, however, been able to smell the sky-high level of compatriots Antonio Rüdiger, Thilo Kehrer and Niklas Süle up close. In Germany, however, the demand for left-footed central defenders is increasing, which are currently very scarce. “I like to have left-footed stoppers in the squad and Nico’s talents are quite versatile,” Flick once remarked.
Nico Schlotterbeck during a practice session with the German national team in Stuttgart ahead of the World Cup qualifiers against Liechtenstein, Armenia and Iceland
Schlotterbeck can be convinced that he showed his calling card during the first half of the season. The centre-back made only sporadic mistakes and also made an impression on the defensive side in the 2-1 loss against Bayern. Under the watchful eye of the entire club management of the German record champion, the German youth international showed his best form. Schlotterbeck has never made it a secret that he likes to play under Streich, as the Freiburg trainer is seen as a tactical mastermind, but is slowly thinking about the next step in his still early career.
“Few players would refuse to play for Bayern,” he told Sports 1. “But I’m playing at Freiburg now and will focus on this season until the end. Then I’ll see what the future will bring.” Teammates jokingly call him schlotti, while fans of Freiburg coined the longest nickname ever for him: Schlotterbeckenbauer. Time will tell if he ever follows in the footsteps of the German legend.