From Dreisamstadion to Europa-Park Stadion

To understand SC Freiburg today, it helps to visit two different parts of the city.

In the east, beside the Dreisam and close to the hills rising towards the Black Forest, stands the Dreisamstadion.

For generations, this was SC Freiburg's home.

Across the city in the north-west stands something very different: the Europa-Park Stadion, larger, newer and built for the demands of modern Bundesliga football.

The distance between them is more than geographical.

Together, the two stadiums tell the story of how SC Freiburg changed from a small local club into an established Bundesliga institution.

SC Freiburg arrived beside the Dreisam long before Bundesliga football became part of the city's identity.

In 1953, the club was given land between the river and the Strandbad on which to build a football ground of its own.

Members contributed many hours of work to help create the new ground.

On 4 September 1955, SC Freiburg played its first official league match there.

It was not yet called the Dreisamstadion. For more than a decade, supporters simply went to the Sport-Club's ground.

The name Dreisamstadion arrived in 1967, taken from the river flowing nearby.

The Dreisamstadion was never a finished object.

It changed as SC Freiburg changed.

Standing terraces were added. New stands appeared. Floodlights arrived. Sections were covered and expanded as crowds grew and the club climbed through German football.

By the end of the 1990s, the stadium held 24,000 spectators.

Its development had taken place piece by piece across decades, giving the ground a character very different from a stadium designed and constructed in a single project.

That history became visible in the building itself.

The qualities that made the Dreisamstadion distinctive eventually became part of its limitations.

SC Freiburg had developed into an established professional club, while its home remained a stadium assembled through decades of extensions and adaptations.

Modern Bundesliga football demanded more space, infrastructure and commercial possibilities than the old site could realistically provide.

A new stadium therefore represented more than additional seats.

It offered SC Freiburg the infrastructure required for the scale the club had reached.

But leaving the Dreisamstadion also meant leaving a place where generations of supporters had learned what following Freiburg felt like.

The move finally came during the 2021/22 season.

Construction delays meant SC Freiburg played its first three Bundesliga home matches of the season at the Dreisamstadion.

That created something unexpected: three additional opportunities for supporters to say goodbye.

On 26 September 2021, FC Augsburg arrived for the final Bundesliga match of the men's first team at the old ground.

Sixty-six years had passed since SC Freiburg first played on the site.

The club had gone from amateur football to the Bundesliga, through promotions and relegations and eventually into European competition.

The stadium had witnessed that entire transformation.

Less than two weeks later, another chapter began.

On 7 October 2021, SC Freiburg officially opened its new stadium with a friendly against FC St. Pauli.

The first Bundesliga match followed on 16 October against RB Leipzig.

The contrast with the old ground was immediate.

The new stadium was larger, purpose-built and designed around the infrastructure of contemporary professional football.

Yet the challenge was not simply to move supporters from one side of Freiburg to the other.

It was to create a new home without treating the previous sixty-six years as something that had been left behind.

In many football cities, moving to a new stadium creates a clear dividing line.

The old ground closes. The first team leaves. Memories remain, but the place itself gradually disappears from everyday club life.

Freiburg took a different route.

The Dreisamstadion remained part of SC Freiburg.

The club's women's team and U23 continued to play there, giving the stadium a new role rather than turning it into a monument to the past.

Further development of the site has continued, connecting youth, women's football, education and club activity with the ground where so much SC history was created.

A football weekend in Freiburg can now include both stadiums.

On Saturday, the Europa-Park Stadion represents the club as it exists today: larger, modern and established in the Bundesliga.

On Sunday, the Dreisamstadion offers another perspective.

The river, the old terraces and the setting in Freiburg's east tell the story of how that modern club was built.

Neither stadium tells the complete story alone.

The Europa-Park Stadion is not a rejection of Freiburg's past. The Dreisamstadion is not simply nostalgia.

One represents what growth made possible. The other remains a living connection to where that growth began.