For the first time since Michael Emenalo left Stamford Bridge in 2017 Chelsea are close to signing someone in the role of either technical or sporting director, this time in the shape of Christoph Freund.
The current sporting director of RB Salzburg has been with the club since 2006, where he started as team manager. He was responsible for more on-the-ground analysis of the team and opposition, and was upgraded to Sports Coordinator in 2012 after the arrival of Ralf Rangnick. He succeeded Rangnick as sporting director in 2015.
He’s earned that promotion too, being a part of a world-renowned and innovative scouting team. He told Goal: “We work a lot with video and data scouting, but our boys also travel to games, again and again, to watch players and get to know them personally.” – RB Salzburg sporting director Christoph Freund in an interview: “Coach scouting is a high priority for us” (spox.com)
He’s watched over a process that has brought in the likes of Dayot Upamecano, Patson Daka, Enock Mwepu and Amadou Haidara all for under £2m each.
That’s only part of the stellar work he has helped carry out. Even besides signing Karim Adeyemi and Erling Haaland in the same transfer window back in 2019, you can see the proof of work in other clubs around Europe.
Leeds’ new duo of Rasmus Kristensen and Brendon Aaaronson are Freund recruits, as are Bundesliga staples Stefan Lainer and Munas Dabbur. That’s only half the picture though, as Freund has stated before how important coach scouting is to him.
He has authorised the contracts for Oscar Garcia (now at Reims in France), Marco Rose, Jesse Marsch and the more recent Mathias Jassle. They’ve won every Austrian Bundesliga in his tenure, and reached as far as the Champions League round of 16.
It’s a wonder why he would leave, considering as has always said he is very happy in Europe. He cycles to work, and lives with his family in Austria. It’s another question worth asking if Chelsea should be going for the 45-year-old.
While the RB revolution has been a tremendous success over the past decade, it’s been a closed system. The managers above have struggled once exiting the Salzburg ecosystem, examples being Marco Rose at Dortmund, Garcia at a litany of clubs and Marsch at Leipzig and in his first few months in Yorkshire.
Salzburg, according to Freund, is used to working with small scouting teams, as few as seven. They then work with teams around the world to find the best players, like their exceptional network in Africa or the family of RB clubs which stretches from New York to Brazil. Their state of the art academy centre was completed a year before his appointment in 2014.
While the philosophy, the style of play and the recruitment has been well maintained, it wasn’t kickstarted by him. It’s more fair to say he has continued the good work started by Rangnick.
That’s not to knock Freund’s talents for overseeing this behemoth of Austrian football. He will surely look to transport plenty of his strategies from the club to Chelsea, such as the idea for focusing more on local regions in recruitment up until the late teens, before looking across Europe or further abroad. That and his preparation kit for each new signing, including hiring a language teacher for foreign arrivals.
However, there’s a reason Marsch once called the Salzburg job the “easiest job I’ve ever had”. All the infrastructure needed for Salzburg to succeed has been mostly in place throughout the last decade. Chelsea are looking to build the infrastructure themselves in many ways. – How Red Bull Salzburg are trying to do things differently in their quest for European supremacy | FourFourTwo
They can’t afford to bank on youngsters and unproven talents, so Freund will need to adapt. The oldest player signed for a transfer fee in his seven years at Salzburg was 26-year-old Paulo Miranda in 2015, a Brazilian who didn’t work out.
Chelsea, and by extension Graham Potter, will likely want to target more established players and be more open to moving for players in the mid to late 20s. Unlike Salzburg, the model isn’t to buy and sell on for profit but buy and win Champions Leagues.
Also with Potter’s five-year contract, Freund will again have to adapt from picking managers who rarely last more than two seasons, to serving one manager assiduously. That may include casting a more diverse net in the profile of players signed, rather than the specific Red Bull model of hard pressing and athletic players.
This harks back to another quote from Freund. When asked about the secret of the RB’s success, he said “we know exactly what we are looking for”. Whether he, Graham Potter or Todd Boehly know *exactly* what Chelsea are looking for right now is fairly unlikely.
The experience Freund will bring from working in Austria for the past 15 years will be valuable. Compared to Luis Campos though, who Chelsea were reportedly targeting, it’s risky.
Campos is a proven miracle worker, crafting Ligue 1 winning teams in Monaco and Lille while overseeing a transformation with PSG. That also came after being a scout and tactical analyst for Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid.
Freund has no prior experience of working in any sporting management role anywhere outside the walls of RB Salzburg, let alone as a sporting director at another club. He may make more sense as a replacement for the recently departed Scott Mclachlan, the lesser role of head of international scouting
As a sporting director though, Freund would be trusted in a sizable role in his first venture away from Salzburg let alone Austria, with fair question marks over exactly what he has built at the club and what was built for him.
No matter how successful he turns out to be, this is a gamble from the Blues. Hopefully, it’s one that pays off.
