One of the great turnarounds took place in Freiburg where a change in team coach at the winter break made all the difference. Christian Streich took over at the start of 2012 with Freiburg firmly stuck at the bottom of the league. After a couple of defeats initially, Streich’s team trounced Schalke and didn’t look back afterwards. They took off on a run of nine games undefeated until suffering the misfortune of being the victims of a rampant Dortmund on the final day. However, Streich had taken them up from bottom place to 12th to effect an amazing turnaround in fortunes when all had seemed lost. There may not be any international stars at Freiburg but they displayed remarkable team spirit to sprint out of the danger zone while others around them were floundering. The departure of Cisse to Newcastle United left Freiburg in the lurch in terms of quality up front. Midfielder Makiadi was their top scorer following the departure of Cisse which speaks for itself. However, their recent success is based on sound defence and with the likes of Oliver Baumann in goal as well as Schuster and Makiadi, who knows where they could end up next season with Streich at the helm.
